Chapter Six. Between The Interior And Frontier

The Jinsha River, one of the three rivers that constituted the traditional border between the Yunnan interior and frontier, winds along the western and southern perimeters of present day Yongsheng county, an imperial prefecture. The modern history of Yongsheng saw disorder and restoration, revolution, and development, in the course of which the local state apparatus grew complex and increasingly influential in the lives of the local populace. A quarter of the county?s territory consists of fertile basins shielded by two mountain ranges: Dongshan and Xishan. The rugged terrain is home to some 380,000 people, of which a majority makes a living from agriculture. In this buffer zone, economic reform has in recent decades taken its own course. Like the political transformation in the past, economic change in Yongsheng today is a result of local adaptation to national level policy-making that offers different solutions to development in the interior and frontier.Keywords: agriculture; economic reform; Jinsha River; local state; national level policy-making; Yongsheng

Archaeology · Frontier · Geography · China's Ethnic Minorities and Relations · Chinese history and philosophy