英文摘要 |
This article examines China's relations with the Central Asian tribal state of Kanjut (also called Hunza) over two centuries. Employing a territorial genealogical approach, this research explores how Kanjut, not initially recognized during the high Qing as an inner dependency or vassal, was gradually re-conceptualized by the Qing court as a historical tributary protectorate, and then in the Republican and Nationalist eras became known as a ”lost territory” ripe for restoration. It also argues that the tributary system was not a dynastic legacy that ceased to function after 1911; rather, it was an instrument of political expediency that continued to be used in the post-imperial era. In a sense, this research offers a new way of thinking about what the ”tribute system” might really have been: a nineteenth and twentieth century reinterpretation of an older form of symbolically asymmetric interstate relations (common in one form or another throughout many parts of Asia). This reinterpretation was strongly informed by English-language terminology and formulations, including ”suzerainty” and the mistranslation of ”gong” as ”tribute” itself, and by the ways that both Britain and China manipulated the terminology in seeking to further their territorial, diplomatic, and strategic interests. |