Since at least the 1960s, the importance of the tremendous territorial expansion under Qing rule to the modern history of China has been generally acknowledged. Indeed, one can say that the frontier story is one of the things that makes the Qing “Qing.” However, only in the last twenty years has the study of what is now termed the “borderlands” come into its own as a sub-field. This essay begins by describing some key concepts and terms in the study of the Qing frontier, including the Manchu word jecen. It then raises the problem of narrative frameworks, asking how we might best contextualize the growth of the empire, before going on to explore the implications of the discursive shift represented by the “New Qing History” and the extensive research on Qing borderlands associated therewith. A poem by the Mongol poet Na-xun Lan-bao provides the focus for a concluding discussion of a distinctive Qing frontier sensibility.

As our understanding of the Qing empire and its various borderlands has evolved, so too have we come to appreciate China’s early modern commercial sophistication. In recent North American studies of the Qing, the links between commerce and conquest have come under investigation, and we are increasingly urged to pay attention to merchants and merchant capital. But how should we understand the relationship between merchants and the Qing empire in the borderlands? This article surveys selected work on the borderlands and commercialization, primarily in the Northwest and Southwest. The goal is to initiate a more comprehensive discussion of how to understand the intersection of commerce and empire while also making some suggestions for ways that borderlands history might shape future work on China.

This paper examines negotiations involving the exchange of envoys between the Qing dynasty and Khoqand in 1759–60. The Qing made contact with Khoqand in order to bring rapid stabilization to the newly acquired western territories. Khoqand, on the other hand, established a relationship with the Qing in order to expand their authority over the Kirghiz, and to advance toward Bukhara. Irdana tried to take advantage of Qing authority for the purpose of expanding his territories, but at the same time, he appealed to the other Central Asian Muslims to engage with him in a “holy war” against the Qing. It is true that each power in Central Asia shared a sense of crisis in reaction to the Qing’s sudden expansion to the west. However, we also need to examine the competition for hegemony among the powers under the pretext of opposition to the Qing’s advance.

The earliest written record of the term “Kaxabu” dates to the 1908 survey report by the Japanese scholar Inō Kanori. In his study of the Pazzehe tribe in central Taiwan, he wrote: “Kaxabu was the name given by the Pazzehe to Daiyao’puru, a small division of its ethnic group.” During the Qing era, the Pazzehe was called the Anli group by Chinese speakers in Taiwan, while the Kaxabu were named Puzili she (the Puzili tribe). Since the Kaxabu originated from the Pazzehe, thus in determining the time when the Kaxabu became distinct from the Pazzehe and in exploring the differences between them, we will also elucidate historical developments before the Japanese colonial era. Using Qing historical materials such as travelogues, expedition records, newspapers, data from fieldwork, surveys, and interviews, this study traces the intervention of the Qing court into tribal relationships in central Taiwan, beginning with the Dajiaxi she Incident (1731–32), it touches on the changing environment of the Kaxabu/ Puzili she in their migrations in order to shed light on the development of the two distinctive identities—the Kaxabu and Pazzehe/Anli group. The analysis also reveals the impact of uprisings and migrations upon the border area surrounding Qing Taiwan, as well as problems of ethnic identification and geography.

This article attempts a preliminary exploration of the intraregional cohesion and division between British Hong Kong and the Lingnan macroregion. A deliberately overlooked locale in Skinner’s macroregional model, Hong Kong developed from a periphery zone on the far eastern outskirt of Lingnan in its precolonial days to a thriving metropolis at the end of British rule. The transformation of British Hong Kong attests to the economic fundamentals of intraregional cohesion. More significantly it highlights the decisive power of political intervention, underestimated in Skinner’s approach, which brought enduring changes to the shape as well as the internal and external relations of the macroregion.