Improvisations on a Semicolonial Theme, or, How to Read a Celebration of Transnational Urban Community

Bibliographic Data

ID3632006
AuthorsBryna Goodman (corresponding author)
Year2000
Volume59
Issue4
Pages889-926
Publication date2000-11-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueThe Journal of Asian Studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0021-9118 • E-ISSN: 1752-0401
PublisherDuke University Press (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.2307/2659216
OpenAlexW2049751131
LanguageEN
Citations received29
References cited40

Semicolonialism, as jürgen osterhammel noted, is a label that has been generally applied to China "without much regard for its potential theoretical implications" (Osterhammel 1986, 296). The partial character of semicolonialism-as incomplete colonialism-poses the question of what difference it made that throughout the modern period China never in fact became a subject nation, but retained sovereignty over nearly all of its territory and was recognized as a sovereign nation by international law. The writings of twentieth-century Chinese nationalists and a recent profusion of theorizing about colonialism and "colonial modernity" in China, by emphasizing colonialism (Barlow 1997), have perhaps obscured rather than clarified the answer to this question. Moreover, semicolonialism in China, as a gradual accretion of phenomena associated with imperialism, varied substantially over time. Its significance for understanding nineteenth-century China, when the foreign presence within China was still quite limited, remains unclear. Several decades of research on imperialism in Shanghai have produced much debate, but no clear mapping of"where, when, howand to whateffectdidwhichextraneous forces impinge" on Chinese life (Osterhammel 1986, 295

China · Colonialism · Modernity · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Sovereignty · Subject (documents) · Theme (computing) · China's Socioeconomic Reforms and Governance · Chinese history and philosophy · History · Japanese History and Culture · Law

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