Nationalist China's “Great Game”

Leveraging Foreign Explorers in Xinjiang, 1927–1935

Bibliographic Data

ID8998075
AuthorsJustin Jacobs (corresponding author), Justin M Jacobs
Year2014
Volume73
Issue1
Pages43-64
Publication date2014-01-02
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueThe Journal of Asian Studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0021-9118 • E-ISSN: 1752-0401
PublisherDuke University Press (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1017/s0021911813001721
OpenAlexW2167289614
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited18

The expeditions of foreign explorers and archaeologists along China's borderlands during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries have long been a lightning rod for debates over cultural sovereignty, imperialism, and nationalism. This study attempts to move beyond such cultural and moral glosses by placing the expeditions of Aurel Stein and Sven Hedin to the northwestern province of Xinjiang back into the domestic geopolitical context of the Nanjing Decade (1927–37). Newly available archival material demonstrates how the discourse of cultural sovereignty, far from sabotaging such expeditions, instead became the handmaiden of domestic geopolitical competitors who attempted to turn Stein and Hedin into exploitable resources for their own agendas. The logistical pragmatism revealed in these sources relegates principled nationalist intellectuals and their imperialist targets to the background, and shows how a new approach to a familiar topic can help paint a fuller portrait of some of the most contested episodes of transnational cultural interactions throughout Eurasia

Ancient history · Archaeology · China · Context (archaeology · Cultural nationalism · Geopolitics · Nationalism · Political science · Politics · Sovereignty · Chinese history and philosophy · History · Japanese History and Culture · Law · Museums and Cultural Heritage

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