Historical Studies (Chinese Edition)

No.2, 2019

 

Qing State Formation and Its Essential Nature in a Global Perspective: With a Focus on Geostrategy and Fiscal Structure (Abstract)

 

Li Huaiyin

 

Unlike previous debates on the “New Qing History,” which focus on the Qing legal code and governance style and the ideas and customs of the Manchu elite, this article reexamines Qing state formation and its essential nature in terms of geostrategy and fiscal structure. Qing territorial integration can be divided into two stages: the period of initial state foundation ran from the rise of the Later Jin regime in the northeast to its conquest and replacement of the Ming Dynasty followed by basic Qing control of the provinces inside Shanhaiguan Pass by the 1650s. The second stage ran from the 1690s to the 1750s, in a half century of military action on the frontiers that was driven but also constricted by the Qing court’s unique geostrategy and fiscal structure. The changes in the Qing geostrategy from passive response to active defense to conservative compromise were closely related to the operation of the low-level equilibrium of its fiscal structure and the social and economic support that underlay it. At the same time, if we compare the Qing state with nineteenth century European fiscal and military states or the Ottoman Empire, we can see the unique fragility and resilience of its initial modern transformation, which leads us to question the applicability of the “empire/nation-state” cognitive paradigm prevalent in the study of state formation.