Lizeth Ortiz Carreño

Chinese Imperialism? Xinjiang Becomes a Part of China 1670-1949

China’s history, as simplifying as this concept may look as Perdue (2009) points out, has
made me reflect on the variety of concepts that are used to describe political, economical
and social relations throughout history and the importance on terminology to prevent
anachronisms or misunderstandings. It was very important to understand how terms as
tribute, colonialism and asymmetry are very well accepted in theories to understand
imperial and colonial relations in Latin America but when it comes to China, translation to
local terms make the problem of translation visible. Of course this has to do with written
tradition in both scenarios, but also with the distance and relations with European academic
production.
However, the difference between the concepts of Empire/imperialism and
colony/colonialism is, I think, very problematic since, even though Perdue points out how
the difference somehow has to do with the location of the centres of power, for me there is
still a very blurry distinction and some authors have started to include criteria for its
analysis such as cultural, material and linguistic criteria or as Millward and Perdue (2007)
argue, archaeological evidence as well. What are the implications of using one term or the
other? How to use them correctly? How to avoid misunderstandings?
It is also important the way Purdue (2007) introduces perspectives as Maier’s to make a
reflection upon the complicity of the elites and the complex process colonization entails.
Sometimes these analysis are driven without recognizing that these processes are
bidirectional and were not completely imposed but also implied different types of
interchanges.