China's Frontier Regions: Ethnicity, Economic Integration and Foreign Relations

by Doug Smith (Editor), Michael E. Clarke (Editor)

Overview

China has traditionally viewed her frontier regions—Zxinjiang, Tibet, Inner Mongolia and Yunnan—as buffer zones. Yet their importance as commercial and cosmopolitan hubs, intimately involved in the transmission of goods, peoples and ideas between China and it west and southwest has meant they are crucial for China's ongoing development. The resurgence of China under Deng Xiaoping's policy of 'reform and opening' has therefore led to a focus on integrating these regions into the PRC (People's Republic of China). This has important implications not only for the frontier regions themselves but also for the neighbouring states, with which they have strong cultural, religious, linguistic and economic ties. China's Frontier Regions explores the challenges presented by this integrationist policy, both for domestic relations and for diplomatic and foreign policy relations with the countries abutting their frontier regions.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781784532581
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	03/30/2016
Series:	International Library of Human Geography
Pages:	224
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.60(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Michael E. Clarke is Associate Professor at the National Security College, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University, Canberra. He has published extensively on the history and politics of Xinjiang, Uyghur separatism, nationalism and terrorism, Chinese foreign policy in Central Asia, Australian foreign and defence policy and global nuclear proliferation and non-proliferation dynamics. He is the author of Xinjiang and China's Rise in Central Asia: A History (2011) and (with Stephan Fruehling and Andrew O'Neil), Australia's Nuclear Policy: Strategic, Economic and Normative Dimensions (2015).

Table of Contents

Notes on Contributors vii

Preface ix

Map: People's Republic of China: Provinces and autonomous regions xii

Introduction: A Rising China and its Frontier Regions into the Twenty-First Century Michael E. Clarke Douglas Smith 1

1 Development with Chinese Characteristics in Xinjiang: A Solution to Ethnic Tension or Part of the Problem? Sean R. Roberts 22

2 Beijing's 'March Westwards': Xinjiang, Central Asia and China's Quest for Great Power Status Michael E. Clarke 56

3 China's Economic Modernization in Tibet and Its Impact on Tibetan Identity Elizabeth Davis 87

4 South Asian Responses to China's Rise: Indian and Nepalese Handling of the Tibet Issue Tsering Topgyal 110

5 Sino-Mongolian Relations in the Twenty-First Century: The Inner Mongolia Factor Sharad K. Soni 140

6 From 'Backwater' to 'Bridgehead': Culture, Modernity and the Reimagining of Yunnan Gary Sigley 171

Index 204