Mining, Bridges, Opium, and Guns: Chinese Investment and State Power in a Late Qing Frontier

Abstract

In the last three decades of its rule, the Qing government attempted to establish Chinese-style administration in many of the empire’s non-Han territories, and, in conjunction with non-government actors, foster land cultivation, Han migration, Chinese education, and industries such as mining. This paper investigates these processes in Liangshan, in upland Southwest China. Here, attempts to establish Chinese administration came only in 1907, after a period of substantial private and state investment in mining, transport infrastructure, and, to a lesser extent, land cultivation. Government officials often assumed that such things would aid the political integration in China, but as this paper argues, the consequences were more complicated than that. Although better transport simplified the logistics of government military campaigns, increased commercial activity in the region also allowed its indigenes to acquire firearms for the first time.

Keywords

mining / opium / road / gun / Liangshan / Yi

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2014 Higher Education Press and Brill