Beware of the Attempt by Overseas Regional History Studies to Deconstruct Historical China

In the so-called “global history” perspective of some Western scholars, various frontier regions of China are severed from Chinese history: the northwest is subsumed under “Inner Asia,” the southwest is understood within the framework of “Zomia,” and Taiwan’s development is uncharitably considered within the sphere of the “Greater East Asia” circle. In this way, a complete map of China is torn to pieces, evoking a strong sense of the late Qing “Situation Map.” [1]1 *Huangyu Quanlan Tu* (Overview Maps of the Imperial Territories): A series of maps of the Qing Empire commissioned by the Kangxi Emperor and completed in 1721, based on modern surveying techniques introduced by Jesuit missionaries.

在一些西方学者所谓“全球史”视野中，中国边疆各区域从中国史中被割离出去，西北地区被囊括在“内陆亚洲”中，西南历史被纳入“赞米亚”的路径内认知，台湾发展则被不怀好意地放在“大东亚”的圈子里考量。这样，一幅完整的中国地图被扯得四分五裂，令人颇有晚清《时局图》之感。

Influenced by postmodern and postcolonial thinking, in the writings of a new generation of American China scholars, China’s frontier regions have become a testing ground for Western conceptual discourses such as “rethinking empire” and “revisiting colonialism.” They often claim that their works are truly “region-centered,” yet in reality they aim to deconstruct historical China, and the true intent behind this merits vigilance.

受后现代、后殖民思路影响，在新一代美国中国学学者笔下，历史中国的边疆地区成为“反思帝国”、“再论殖民”等西方话语概念的试验场。他们多宣称自己的作品是真正“以区域为中心”，实际上却落脚于解构历史中国，其背后的真实意图值得警惕。

A Proliferation of New Forms of Regional History Studies

花样翻新的区域史研究

American China studies’ regional history originated in the 1930s and 1940s. In this phase, sinologists such as John King Fairbank, Owen Lattimore, and Karl August Wittfogel often focused on larger regions like “East Asia” and the “interior.” Starting in the 1960s, influenced by political reflection during the Vietnam War, American China studies underwent a turn. The Western-centered historiographical paradigm came under criticism, and, driven by the Annales School and social anthropology, many scholars chose to view China from more specific spatial perspectives (what Paul Cohen called the “China-centered approach”). For instance, Frederic Wakeman’s *Strangers at the Gate* and Philip Kuhn’s *Rebellion and Its Enemies in Late Imperial China* discuss late Qing Chinese society, unfolding from South China and Central China respectively. Joseph Esherick’s *Reform and Revolution in China: The 1911 Revolution in Hunan and Hubei* and William Rowe’s *Hankow: Commerce and Society in a Chinese City, 1796–1889* directly take regions as their research subjects. G. William Skinner’s “macroregional systems theory” delineated China’s spatial structure from the grassroots society to the macro-regional level, exerting a profound influence on regional history studies in American China scholarship.

美国中国学区域史研究滥觞于20世纪三四十年代，这一阶段的费正清、拉铁摩尔、魏特夫等汉学家往往着眼于“东亚”、“内陆”等较大区域。自60年代始，受越战时期政治反思的影响，美国中国学研究发生转向，以西方为中心的史学范式受到批判，加之年鉴学派与社会人类学推动，诸多学者选择从更具体的空间看待中国（即柯文所言“中国中心观”），如魏斐德《大门口的陌生人》与孔飞力《中华帝国晚期的叛乱及其敌人》讨论晚清中国社会，实际上分别从华南与华中两个区域展开；周锡瑞《改良与革命：辛亥革命在两湖》、罗威廉《汉口：一个中国城市的商业和社会（1796—1889）》等，则直接以区域作为研究题目。施坚雅“经济区系理论”梳理了中国从基层社会至宏观区域的空间结构，对美国中国学区域史研究有深远影响。

From the 1990s to the present, as the influence of postmodern and postcolonial theory has deepened, and with the recent turn in Western scholarship toward global history, new cultural history, and new imperial history, a trend has emerged in American China studies’ regional history from a “China-centered” to a “region-centered” approach. Many studies in this vein have also been influenced by so-called “Inner Asian historical perspectives” and the “New Qing History,” generating or refurbishing a series of bizarre theories such as “Yuan and Qing are not China” and “Chinese colonialism.” Examples include Laura Hostetler’s *Qing Colonial Enterprise: Ethnography and Cartography in Early Modern China*, John Herman’s *Amid the Clouds and Mist: China’s Colonization of Guizhou, 1200–1700*, Emma Teng’s *Taiwan’s Imagined Geography: Chinese Colonial Travel Writing and Pictures, 1683–1895*, Peter Perdue’s *China Marches West: The Qing Conquest of Central Eurasia*, James Millward’s *Beyond the Pass: Economy, Ethnicity, and Empire in Qing Central Asia, 1759–1864*, and Michael Clarke’s *Power in the Eye: China and Xinjiang from the Qing Conquest to the “New Great Game,” 1759–2004*. Yang Bin’s doctoral dissertation from Northeastern University, *Between Winds and Clouds: The Making of Yunnan*, and the book *The Flow of Territory: Yunnan and China from a Global Perspective* that developed from it, can also be seen as products of this trend. It is evident that this generation of American China scholars is highly interested in China’s various frontier regions, including

20世纪90年代至今，后现代、后殖民理论影响愈深，加之近年来西方发生全球史、新文化史及新帝国史的研究转向，美国中国学区域史研究出现从“中国为中心”转向“区域为中心”的风潮。其间不少研究又受所谓“内亚史观”、“新清史”等影响，产生或翻新“元清非中国”、“中华殖民主义”等一系列奇谈怪论，如何罗娜《清代殖民事业：中国早期近代的民族志与制图学》、乔荷曼《云雾之间：中国在贵州的殖民（1200—1700）》、邓津华《台湾的想象地理：中国殖民旅游书写与图像（1683—1895）》、濮德培《中国西进：清朝对中央欧亚的征服》、米华健《嘉峪关外：1759—1864年新疆的经济、民族和清帝国》、迈克尔·克拉克《权力之眼：从清朝征服到“新中亚大角逐”的中国与新疆（1759—2004）》，等等。毕业于美国东北大学的杨斌的博士论文《季风之北，彩云之南：云南的形成》，以及在此基础上形成的《流动的疆域：全球视野下的云南与中国》一书，也可视为此潮流下的作品。可以看出，这一代美国中国学学者对中国边疆各区域极富兴趣，涉及中国台湾、西南及西北等众多地区，时段上偏重元代以降。他们多把中国古代王朝称为“帝国”，认为元、清等王朝并非中国，将中国古代王朝疆域拓展与边疆治理类同于西方“殖民”。

Enthusiastic about using "Western concepts" to examine China's borderlands

热衷于用“西方概念”透视中国边疆

Laura Hostetler's *Qing Colonial Enterprise* is similar to Teng's work, arguing that the Qing dynasty's pursuit of empirical cartographic mapping and the production of ethnographic texts in Guizhou closely resembled the colonial methods of contemporary Western empires. Consequently, the Qing, as an expansionist "colonial empire," also participated in the construction of the early modern world. Michael Clarke's *The Eye of Power* likewise contends that the Qing dynasty's emulation of the Han and Tang dynasties in Xinjiang, together with knowledge-building activities such as mapping and compiling ethnographies in Xinjiang, shaped the ideology that "Xinjiang is an inalienable part of the empire." The Qing's governance methods in the borderlands, he argues, made it "comparable to the great empires of Europe."

在后现代、后殖民理论的浸润下，新一代美国中国学学者十分热衷于用“西方概念透镜”观察中国边疆，在所谓“以区域为中心”的视角下，欲图重写中国边疆的发展历史，进而重新定义“中国”概念。邓津华在《台湾的想象地理》一书绪论中，称台湾为“大清帝国最新边疆”，历史中国本身即是“一个帝国主义强权”。邓氏言其用意“不在于证明清帝国主义符合其他帝国主义（如英国或西班牙）的模式”，而是希望“在西方与中国的殖民论述之间，提出交汇点的可能性”。她认为清朝测绘《皇舆全览图》、编修《大清一统志》《皇清职贡图》等，皆为辅助“殖民统治”的手段，是清朝“文化帝国主义”的一部分。

The aforementioned Yang Bin's study of Yunnan in *The Flow of Territory* shares common ground with John Herman's account of Guizhou in *Amid the Clouds and Mist*. Both argue that the Yuan and Ming dynasties' policies of "military conquest and colonization" in the southwest were the decisive factors in making the Yunnan-Guizhou region "become China," and that the Qing continued and consolidated this late-imperial mode of rule. Yang even suggests that Yunnan, as China's southwestern frontier, was a "historical legacy" left by the Mongol conquest, and that Yunnan Province as an administrative unit was an "invention" of the central dynasty. Only after local residents formed a provincial identity as "Yunnan people" could Yunnan be considered part of China. Yang's Yunnan includes the present-day Guizhou region, and he "boldly proposes" that provincial identity "was not only the basic unit of Chinese identity in the Chinese empire, but also the self-manifestation of Chinese people within China... and laid the foundation for modern Chinese identity." It is evident that Yang Bin's research not only seeks to deconstruct the integrity of Chinese history but also aims to deconstruct provincial identity, further questioning the entire traditional narrative of China's territorial history.

何罗娜所著《清代殖民事业》与邓著类似，认为清朝追求实证的地图测绘以及在贵州的民族志类文本编写，与同时期西方帝国的殖民手段十分相似，因而，清朝作为一个扩张性的“殖民帝国”，同样参与了早期近代世界的构建。迈克尔·克拉克《权力之眼》也认为，清朝在新疆“模仿汉唐”的行为，与在新疆绘制舆图、编写民族志等知识建设一道，塑造了“新疆是帝国不可分割的一部分”的意识形态。清朝在边疆的治理手段，使得其可以与“欧洲的伟大帝国相媲美”。

Similarly, Peter C. Perdue and James A. Millward, in their respective works, both characterize the Qing dynasty's management of Xinjiang as "Manchu colonialism." Perdue argues that the Qing's military campaigns in Xinjiang, Mongolia, and other borderlands resembled the external colonization of contemporary Europe, particularly Russia, and proposes a so-called "Eurasian similarity thesis." He contends that the Qing victory over the Zunghar Khanate was largely due to numerous "contingencies" in the three-way geopolitical game among the Qing, the Mongols, and Russia. This historical "contingency" not only facilitated the Manchu entry through the passes and the unification of the Qing but also appeared in the form of "ecological contingency," allowing Western Europe, which was not so different from China, to create the "European miracle" and luckily reshape the next phase of the world order. Furthermore, precisely because the Qing's "great unification" [4]4 *Dayitong* (great unification): A traditional Chinese political concept referring to the ideal of a unified, centralized empire encompassing diverse regions and peoples under a single sovereign, historically associated with the Qin and Han dynasties and later dynasties. territory was a situation "coincidentally piled up by many factors," it is "no wonder that the high Qing unification could not last long." Naturally, Perdue believes that China's current vast territory is not inevitable. Millward, for his part, directly claims that the Qing's rule over the northwestern frontier implemented "Qing imperialism," and that it was precisely through the Qing's "Orientalist" cultural construction that the concept of "Xinjiang belongs to China" emerged.

前述杨斌《流动的疆域》对云南的研究，与乔荷曼《云雾之间》对贵州的表述有互通之处，都认为元明两朝对西南的“军事征服与殖民”政策，是云贵地区“成为中国”的决定因素，清朝承续并巩固了这种帝制晚期的统治方式。他甚至认为，作为中国西南边疆的云南是蒙古征服“留下的历史遗产”，云南这一省级行政区是中央王朝的“发明”，只有本地居民形成省级认同的“云南人”身份后，云南才能被认为是中国的一部分。杨氏笔下的云南包括今贵州地区，他“大胆地提出”，省级身份认同“既是中华帝国时期中国人的基本组成单位，也是中国人在中国境内的自我体现……并为现代中国的认同奠定了基础”。可见杨斌的研究不但要解构中国历史整体性，而且有解构省级认同，进一步质疑整个中国传统疆域历史叙述的取向。

Ignoring China's historical tradition of "great unification" [4]4 *Dayitong* (great unification): A traditional Chinese political concept referring to the ideal of a unified, centralized empire encompassing diverse regions and peoples under a single sovereign, historically associated with the Qin and Han dynasties and later dynasties.

无独有偶，濮德培与米华健在各自著作中，都将清朝经略新疆视为“满洲殖民主义”。濮德培认为清朝用兵新疆、蒙古等边疆地区，与同时期欧洲特别是俄国的对外殖民近似，提出所谓“欧亚相似论”。他认为清朝对准噶尔部的胜利，很大程度上应归于清、蒙、俄三方地缘博弈中诸多的“偶然性”；这种历史“偶然性”不仅助推满洲入关、清朝统一，还以“生态偶然性”的面貌出现，令本与中国差异不大的西欧得以缔造“欧洲奇迹”，幸运地重塑下一阶段的世界秩序。更进一步，正因清朝“大一统”版图是众多因素“恰巧堆砌而成的局面”，才“难怪盛清的统一不能长久持续”。自然地，濮德培认为当下中国的广域版图并非必然。米华健则径称清朝对西北边疆的统治贯彻了“清帝国主义”，正是通过清朝“东方主义”式的文化塑造，才出现“新疆属于中国”这一观念。

Ignoring China’s historical “great unity” (dayitong) [5]5 “Great unity” (dayitong) refers to the traditional Chinese ideal of a unified, centralized state under a single sovereign, a concept deeply embedded in Chinese historiography and political culture.

无视中国“大一统”的历史

In the aforementioned works, researchers often casually refer to ancient China outright as an “empire” at the very beginning, a perspective that runs through the entire text and becomes the basis for various inferences. The “Chinese empire” they refer to has two prominent characteristics: first, the “imperial characteristics” of ancient China are most prominently manifested in the Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasties, because these three dynasties ruled vast territories encompassing diverse cultures and ethnic groups. For instance, Emma Jinhua Teng argues that, compared to the Ming dynasty, the Qing dynasty “transformed from a Central Plains kingdom into a multicultural empire” [6]6 Emma Jinhua Teng, *Taiwan’s Imagined Geography: Chinese Colonial Travel Writing and Pictures, 1683–1895* (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Asia Center, 2004), p. 29.; second, after the Yuan dynasty, the “Chinese empire’s” rule over the northwest, southwest, and even Taiwan through means such as military conquest and knowledge construction was similar to the colonial activities of contemporary European empires, jointly participating in the shaping of the early modern world.

前述著作中，研究者往往开篇便很随意地将古代中国径称为“帝国”，这种视角贯穿全文，成为诸种推论的基础。他们指称的“中华帝国”有两个突出特点：其一，古代中国的“帝国特性”突出表现于元、明、清，原因在于此三朝统治了广袤地域，包含多元文化、族群，如邓津华认为，相对于明朝，清朝“从中原之国变成多元文化的帝国”；其二，元代以后，“中华帝国”通过武力征服、知识建构等手段，对西北、西南乃至台湾的统治，与同时期欧洲帝国的殖民活动相类，共同参与了对早期近代世界的塑造。

This research approach strikes many Chinese scholars as unfamiliar and strange. Some scholars have pointed out that when Westerners came into contact with the Ming dynasty in the 16th century, the term “Chinese Empire” had already become popular. Juan González de Mendoza, Matteo Ricci, and others believed that each province of China was so vast in territory that it could well be called a “kingdom,” and the Ming dynasty above the provinces could naturally be regarded as an “empire.” By the Kangxi reign, with the participation of missionaries in the compilation of the *Map of the Imperial Territories* [7]7 The *Map of the Imperial Territories* (皇舆全览图) was a comprehensive atlas of the Qing empire completed in 1721 under the Kangxi Emperor, based on Jesuit surveys. and its widespread circulation in Europe, the “Chinese territory” recognized by Europe at that time was essentially the territorial situation of the mid-to-late Ming dynasty. This is also the main source of biases in Western Sinology, such as “the land north of the Great Wall is not China” and “the southwestern Miao frontier is not China,” a bias also manifested as a binary division between Han and non-Han ethnic groups. Consequently, Western Sinology views the strengthening of rule by the Yuan and Qing dynasties over the northwest, southwest, and even the southeast as acts with the same essence as the “colonial expansion” of contemporary Western empires.

这种研究思路，让诸多中国学者感到陌生与怪异。有学者指出，16世纪西方人在与明朝接触时，称中国为“中华帝国”的说法便已流行开来。门多萨、利玛窦等认为中国每个省地域之广，完全可以称作“王国”，而在省之上的明朝，自然可视为“帝国”。至康熙时，随着传教士参与《皇舆全览图》编绘及该图在欧洲的广泛流传，当时欧洲认识到的“中国疆域”，基本是明中后期的疆域状况。这也是西方中国学“长城以北非中国”、“西南苗疆非中国”等偏见形成的主要根源，这种偏见亦表现为汉族与非汉民族的二元分立。由此，对于元、清两朝在西北、西南乃至东南统治的加强，西方中国学界将之视为与同时期西方帝国“殖民扩张”具有相同本质的行为。

The orientation of forcibly grafting theories such as “Chinese empire colonialism,” built on Western experience and even biases, onto the study of various regions of China not only ignores the internal logic of China’s historical development but also carries a real-world orientation that warrants vigilance. A unified multi-ethnic China was gradually shaped and finalized through the long and tortuous development of the many ethnic groups living on the land of China. Taking the relationship between northern nomadic peoples and central plains agricultural peoples as an example: beneath the surface of war and peace over two millennia lies the historical fact of the inseparable and gradual integration of these two major populations. From the “land of the bow-drawn peoples” [8]8 “Land of the bow-drawn peoples” (引弓之国) is a classical Chinese phrase referring to the nomadic peoples of the northern steppes, contrasting with settled agricultural societies. opposed to the “realm of caps and sashes” [9]9 “Realm of caps and sashes” (冠带之室) is a classical Chinese phrase referring to the civilized, ritual-bound society of the central plains. in the early Western Han, to the southern migration of northern peoples participating in the construction of central plains regimes during the Wei, Jin, and Southern and Northern Dynasties, and even to the northern peoples who established dynasties such as the Liao, Jin, Yuan, and Qing, they gradually became the leaders of the “grand unification” [10]10 “Grand unification” (大一统) is a classical Chinese political concept emphasizing the ideal of a unified realm under a single sovereign, often associated with the Qin and Han dynasties. regimes. In this process, the various ethnic groups of the northwest, southwest, and the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau also participated in the construction of the unified multi-ethnic state in diverse ways.

将建立在西方经验乃至偏见基础上的“中华帝国殖民主义”等理论，强行嫁接到中国各区域研究的取向，不但忽视中国历史发展的自身脉络，而且含有令人警惕的现实指向。统一多民族的中国，是中华大地上生活的众多民族经历漫长而曲折的发展逐渐塑造定型的。以北方游牧民族与中原农耕民族关系为例，两千年间战与和的表象之下，是两大人群无法分隔而渐趋融合的历史事实。从西汉前期与“冠带之室”对立的“引弓之国”，到魏晋南北朝时期北方民族南下参与中原政权建设，以至建立辽、金、元、清等王朝的北方诸民族，逐渐成为“大一统”政权的主导者。在这一过程中，西北、西南及青藏高原各民族，也以多样方式参与到统一多民族国家的建构中。

This process involved both division and unification, but the historical reality that division led to war and chaos while unity led to development made the exploration and creation of effective systems suitable for a unified multi-ethnic state a continuous pursuit of successive regimes on the land of China. For example, the provincial system [11]11 The provincial system (行省制度) was a territorial administrative division system first formally established under the Yuan dynasty (1271–1368), which later became the basis for China’s modern provincial structure. created by the Yuan dynasty originated from the mobile secretariats [12]12 Mobile secretariats (行台) were temporary central government agencies dispatched to oversee regions during the Wei, Jin, Sui, and Tang dynasties. of the Wei, Jin, Sui, and Tang dynasties, with its direct source being the mobile Department of State Affairs [13]13 The mobile Department of State Affairs (行尚书省) was a temporary administrative organ of the Jin dynasty (1115–1234), a predecessor to the Yuan provincial system. of the Jin dynasty. The provincial system conformed to the trend of integrating and centralizing higher-level administrative divisions since the Song and Ming dynasties, and can be regarded as a successful practice of previous dynasties in exploring systems for higher-level administrative divisions. Yang Bin argues that only after forming a provincial identity of “Yunnan people” can the Yunnan region be considered part of China. This “fission” theory, detached from the evolution of China’s administrative divisions, clearly deliberately highlights differences, weakens the historical continuity of China’s institutions, and ignores the basic fact that higher-level administrative divisions depend on the existence of their subordinate administrative divisions. In reality, the establishment of Yunnan province was closely related to the effective governance of the southwest region through the establishment of administrative divisions by central plains dynasties since the Qin and Han dynasties, as well as the situation of partial unification in the southwest during the Nanzhao and Dali periods [14]14 Nanzhao (738–902) and Dali (937–1253) were independent kingdoms based in what is now Yunnan province, which maintained tributary and trade relations with contemporary Chinese dynasties. combined with close interaction with the central plains dynasties. Similarly, the view that the Qing dynasty “colonized” the frontiers through means such as map surveying and ethnographic compilation completely disregards China’s tradition of mapmaking, as expressed in “using the maps of the realm’s lands to fully know the extent of the nine regions’ territories” [15]15 This phrase is adapted from the *Rites of Zhou* (周礼), an ancient Chinese text on state organization, which describes the duties of officials in charge of maps and territories., and the historiographical tradition of recording “local customs” in historical books and local gazetteers for the purpose of governance.

这一过程有分有合，但分则战乱、和致发展的历史现实，使得探索和创建适合统一多民族国家的有效制度，成为中华大地上历代政权接续未断的追求。如元朝创建的行省制度滥觞于魏晋隋唐的行台，直接来源则是金代行尚书省。行省制契合了两宋以降高层政区整合集权的趋势，可谓此前历朝对高层政区制度探索的成功实践。杨斌认为只有形成“云南人”的省级身份后，云南地区才能被视为中国的一部分。这种脱离中国政区演变的“裂变”论，显然是在刻意凸显差异，弱化中国制度的历史继承性，且忽视高层政区要依赖其下级政区而存在的基本事实。实际上，云南行省的建立，与秦汉以来中原王朝在西南地区设置政区进行有效治理，以及南诏、大理时期西南局部统一同时又与中原王朝密切交往的形势息息相关。类似地，认为清朝以地图测绘与民族志编纂等手段在边疆“殖民”的观点，则完全无视中国“以天下土地之图，周知九州之地域广轮之数”的地图绘制传统，及史书、方志记载“风俗”以资政的史学传承。

Ancient China Was Not a “Colonial Empire”

古代中国不是“殖民帝国”

Why have so many American China scholars taken a research path that rigidly understands and partitions China’s regions, especially its border areas, through Western concepts? Looking at the problematic awareness of the aforementioned works, behind the diverse surface phenomena there is often a consistent logical chain: the Yuan and Qing dynasties were not China, but nomadic “conquest dynasties” or “empires,” and their methods of governing vast territories can be classified as “imperialist” means; similar to modern Western empires, the “Chinese Empire” also employed measures such as mapmaking and ethnographic compilation to “reinterpret” its territories and to “colonize” border ethnic areas.

为何不少美国中国学学者走上以西方概念僵化理解、分隔中国区域特别是边疆地区的研究路径呢？从前述论著的问题意识看，纷繁表象背后，多有一条贯穿的逻辑链：元、清等王朝并非中国，而是游牧的“征服王朝”或“帝国”，其治理广袤疆域的方式可归为“帝国主义”手段；与西方近代帝国相仿，“中华帝国”也通过舆图绘制、民族志编纂等举措，对疆域进行“重新解释”，对边疆民族地区进行“殖民”。

Through forced comparison, they replace the “late imperial” Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasties with the visage of early modern “colonial empires.” In this way, it not only conveniently downplays modern Western colonial aggression against China, but also facilitates the use of post-colonial and post-modern theories, originally intended to critique colonialism and modernity, to continuously deconstruct historical China. Within the so-called “global history” perspective, China’s various border regions are severed from Chinese history: the northwest is subsumed into “Inner Asia,” the southwest’s history is understood within the framework of “Zomia,” and Taiwan’s development is maliciously considered within the circle of “Greater East Asia.” Thus, a complete map of China is torn to pieces, evoking the feeling of the late Qing “Situation Map.” [6]6 Emma Jinhua Teng, *Taiwan’s Imagined Geography: Chinese Colonial Travel Writing and Pictures, 1683–1895* (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Asia Center, 2004), p. 29.

通过强行比较，他们将“帝制晚期”的元、明、清三朝，置换为早期近代“殖民帝国”之面貌。如此，不但方便淡化近代西方对中国的殖民侵略，而且便于用原本批判殖民与现代化的后殖民、后现代理论，对历史中国不断进行解构。在所谓“全球史”视野中，中国边疆各区域从中国史中被割离出去，西北地区被囊括在“内陆亚洲”中，西南历史被纳入“赞米亚”的路径内认知，台湾发展则被不怀好意地放在“大东亚”的圈子里考量。这样，一幅完整的中国地图被扯得四分五裂，令人颇有晚清《时局图》之感。

Furthermore, these studies are not lacking in arbitrary judgments on practical issues such as “what is China” and “the formation of modern China.” These scholars are often influenced by Turner’s frontier thesis, [7]7 The *Map of the Imperial Territories* (皇舆全览图) was a comprehensive atlas of the Qing empire completed in 1721 under the Kangxi Emperor, based on Jesuit surveys. believing that it was precisely the frontier expansion of the early modern “Chinese Empire” that shaped the current reality and perception of China as a unified multi-ethnic state; with the end of the “Chinese Empire” era, each region within China needs to undergo a process of “decolonization” that “st

此外，这些研究中也不乏对“何为中国”、“现代中国形成”等现实问题的武断判断。这些学者往往受特纳边疆学影响，认为正是早期近代“中华帝国”的边疆开拓，塑造了当代中国统一多民族国家的现状与认知；随着“中华帝国”时代结束，中国境内各区域需要“从本土出发”、“从族群出发”，经历“脱离帝国叙事”的“解殖”过程，而这种“解殖”其实就是“去中国化”；中国应该回到那个西方熟悉与认可的“汉族中国”。有学者一针见血地指出，西方欲图书写一部“没有中国的中国史”。但历史足以证明，统一多民族的中国、多元一体的中华民族，是中华大地上生活的各民族在千百年来的历史长河中自然凝聚而形成的，又在近代以来反抗殖民侵略、争取民族独立的斗争中最终定型，绝不应被冠以近代欧洲资本原始积累驱动催生的“殖民帝国”之污名。

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