Making the State on the Sino-Tibetan Frontier: Chinese Expansion and Local Power in Batang,
1842-1939
William M. Coleman, IV
Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences
Columbia University
2014
© 2013
William M. Coleman, IV
All rights reserved
Abstract
Making the State on the Sino-Tibetan Frontier: Chinese Expansion and Local Power in Batang,
1842-1939
William M. Coleman, IV
This dissertation analyzes the process of state building by Qing imperial representatives and Republican state officials in Batang, a predominantly ethnic Tibetan region located in southwestern Sichuan Province. Utilizing Chinese provincial and national level archival materials and Tibetan language works, as well as French and American missionary records and publications, it explores how Chinese state expansion evolved in response to local power and has three primary arguments. First, by the mid-nineteenth century, Batang had developed an identifiable structure of local governance in which native chieftains, monastic leaders, and imperial officials shared power and successfully fostered peace in the region for over a century. Second, the arrival of French missionaries in Batang precipitated a gradual expansion of imperial authority in the region, culminating in radical Qing military intervention that permanently altered local understandings of power. While short-lived, centrally-mandated reforms initiated soon thereafter further integrated Batang into the Qing Empire, thereby demonstrating the viability of New Policy reforms and challenging the idea that the late Qing was a failed state. Finally, I posit that despite almost two decades of political, economic, and social upheaval in the post-Qing period, Nationalist officials’ ability to repel central Tibetan attempts to assert their authority over Batang while effectively denying multiple movements for autonomous self-rule by local Batang political activists who were also Nationalist Party representatives directly contributed to Batang’s incorporation into the Nationalist state. This analysis of Batang’s transition from an imperial domain of the Qing Empire to a county in the newly created province of Xikang in 1939 highlights China’s desultory and still incomplete transition from empire to nation.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements………………………………………………………………………………..ii List of Abbreviations……………………………………………………………………………...v Dates……………………………………………………………………………………………...vi Notes on Transliteration……………………………………………………………………........vii Maps………………………………………………………………………………………………ix Chapter One: Introduction………………………………………………………………………...1 Chapter Two: Batang’s Early History……………………………………………………………32 Chapter Three: Batang’s Missionary Cases……………………………………………………...90 Chapter Four: Batang in the Late Qing: Reform and Rebellion……………………………...190
Chapter Five: Batang in a New Era: Political Restructuring, Economic Reform, and Social Transformation…………………………………………………………………261
Chapter Six: Batang in the Republican Period: Political Instability, Self-Rule,
and State Integration……………………………………………………………………...368
Chapter Seven: Conclusion……………………………………………………………………..475
Bibliography……………………………………………………………………………………488
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Acknowledgements
A dissertation is rarely the product of one mind, and this one is no different. I cannot but begin by breaking with convention to thank my wife, Asuka, for her unwavering support that has seen this project begin in a sun-drenched seminar room at the University of Hawai’i many years ago, move to the learned halls of Columbia University, absorb the demands of professional diplomacy across the globe, and reach its present form in northeast China. Her constant encouragement and good humor has been my source of inspiration.
I would also like to extend my sincerest gratitude to Madeleine Zelin, my advisor.
Through an unexpectedly long writing process, she has always offered insightful guidance, pushing me to connect local events in a far-flung corner of the Sino-Tibetan frontier to larger historical trends and ideas. Robert Barnett has also been a steadfast supporter of my research since I arrived at Columbia, and I cannot overstate how important his mentorship has been. I have been very fortunate to benefit from rich interactions with many other Columbia University professors and scholars, including Karen Barkey, who introduced me to the value of comparative studies; Gray Tuttle, whose scholarship demonstrates the importance of Tibet to our understandings of modern China; Sherry Ortner (now at UCLA), who showed me Tibet from its other borders; Carol Gluck, who was instrumental in bringing me to New York; Robert Hymes, whose historiographical acumen continues to amaze me; Michael Tsin (now at UNC Chapel Hill), who opened my eyes to the richness of modern Chinese history; and the late Pei-yi Wu, who pretended to love my strange classical texts from the Sino-Tibetan frontier as much as I did. I also wish to thank the entire staff of the C.V. Starr East Asian Library for their research assistance during my time at Columbia.
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This project began in Hawai’i, and my intellectual debt to Dru Gladney is immense. Dru was the ideal M.A. advisor whose introduction to the intricacies of anthropological theory continues to shape my thinking. Thanks to his ever-present encouragement, I am not only a better thinker; I am also a better surfer. Harry Lamley, also at Hawai’i, provided important feedback in this project’s early stages, for which I am grateful.
I also had the great fortune to benefit from the wisdom of the late E. Gene Smith, whose infectious passion for the study of Tibet knew no bounds.
I would be remiss not to thank the many language teachers that have given me access to the beautiful worlds of Chinese and Tibetan history. I am particularly indebted to Xu Long, Tenzin Norbu, Xia Jing, Rose Shen, Wang Sulan, Zhang Xuyin, and Yao Weili.
Over the years this project has developed I have benefitted from many other people around the world, including (in rough geographic order): Fabio Lanza, Georgia Mickey, Ian Miller, Kwang-kyoon Yeo, David Atwill, Marielle Prins, AS, LT, Yanglin Dorje, Qin Heping, Lang Weiwei, Chen Bo, Douglas Wissing, Alex Gardner, Robert Bare, Michael Graham, and Stephen Sears. My thanks for their contributions, direct and indirect, are deeply heartfelt.
I would also like to acknowledge the numerous organizations that provided financial support for research related to this project, including the U.S. Department of Education, the Social Science Research Council, the Weatherhead East Asian Institute at Columbia University, and the American Historical Association.
And finally, I would like to thank my parents, Bill and Linda Coleman, for raising me with the curiosity to explore the world while not forgetting where I come from.
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For Asuka, who has always had faith
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List of Abbreviations
BTXZ JJD
Batang xianzhi (巴塘县志) Jiaowu jiaoan dang (教務教案檔)
- KPDM
- Khams phyogs dkar mdzes khul gyi dgon sde so so ’ i lo rgyus gsal bar bshad pa
thub bstan gsal ba ’ i me long zhes bya ba bshugs, vol. 2
QCBDS QSL
Qingmo Chuan Dian bianwu dang ’ an shiliao (清末川滇边务档案史料) Da Qing lichao shilu (大清歷朝實錄)
- QZZ
- Qingdai Zangshi zoudu (清代藏事奏牘)
v
Dates
I present all dates first in the Julian solar calendar. I record Chinese date references following the Chinese lunar calendar with reign name first, followed by the year, month, and day. For example, GX 1.2.23 is the Chinese lunar calendar rendering for March 30, 1875. An asterisk (*) after a lunar calendar date indicates it occurred during an intercalary month. I use the following abbreviations for Qing imperial reign names:
- SZ
- Shunzhi (1644-1661)
Kangxi (1662-1722) Yongzheng (1723-1735) Qianlong (1736-1795) Jiaqing (1796-1820) Daoguang (1821-1850) Xianfeng (1851-1861) Tongzhi (1862-1874) Guangxu (1875-1907) Xuantong (1908-1911)
KX YZ QL JQ DG XF TZ GX XT
vi
Notes on Transliteration
For the purposes of this work, I have transliterated Tibetan terms and proper nouns that appear in the body of this dissertation in such a way as to render them easily pronounceable to English speakers. Upon the first appearance of a Tibetan term or proper noun, I have included a transliteration of the word according to the Wylie Transliteration System following it in parenthesis.1 I have also transliterated Tibetan terms and proper nouns in Tibetan language works that appear in footnotes and/or the bibliography according to the Wylie system unless the author(s) have provided alternative English transliterations.
I have transliterated Chinese terms, place names, and personal names according to the standard Hanyu Pinyin system (漢語拼音), except in such cases where other transliterations are more familiar, such as Sun Yat-sen (孫中山). Chinese characters appear in parenthesis after the first occurrence of proper nouns and key words or phrases that may be best understood in the original language.
Chinese does not have a standard method to transliterate Tibetan terms, place names, or personal names. As a result, it is not always clear to what object, location, or person a Chinese author may be referring when he transliterates Tibetan into Chinese. When the original Tibetan term or place name to which a Chinese transliteration refers is indisputable, I use the Tibetan term or place name, except in some cases when the Chinese term or place name occurs more commonly in discourse of the time. When the original Tibetan term or place name is uncertain, I retain the Chinese transliteration of the term or place name. Although Tibetan personal names have relatively standard spellings, Chinese authors do not transliterate them with consistency.
1 Turrell V. Wylie, “A Standard System of Tibetan Transcription,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 22 (1959):
261-267.
vii
When I have been able to confirm the Tibetan spelling of a personal name transliterated in Chinese, I use the original Tibetan spelling. Otherwise, I use the Hanyu Pinyin transliteration of the name.
Tibetan personal names present an added challenge. In frontier areas like Batang (‘Ba’ thang, 巴塘), the subject of this study, people were often of mixed ethnicity, and they commonly held two (or more) names: one in Tibetan and one in Chinese. Choosing which name to use when referring to a historical person is not always obvious. In principle, I have adopted the name used most commonly by the individual in question, his/her contemporaries, and secondary source authors who have written about that person. For example, throughout this dissertation I refer to Tibetan Kelzang Tsering (Skal bzang Tshe ring, 格桑澤仁) by his Tibetan name, although he was also known as Wang Tianhua (王天化) and Wang Tianjie (王天傑). On the other hand, I refer to Tibetan Jiang Anxi (江安西) by his Chinese name, although he was given the Tibetan name Lobsang Thundrup (Lob sang Thun drup, 洛松鄧珠) at birth.
I have made every attempt to verify the proper transliteration of French names written in
Chinese. For those names for which I could not identify the original French, I follow the Hanyu Pinyin system as they are written in Chinese language materials.
viii
Maps
Map 1:
Ethnographic Tibet in the Qing Empire ix
Map 2:
Major towns in Kham in the Nineteenth Century x
Map 3:
Batang and Surrounding Territories in the Early Twentieth Century xi
Chapter One: Introduction
This dissertation analyzes the ascendancy of Batang as a locus of consequential political events and activities in China’s late Qing and Republican eras, the impact of these developments on local society, and their significance in the broader history of China and Tibet during this time period. In short, local circumstances—people, events, society—matter in Chinese and Tibetan history. This dissertation will outline a narrative history that demonstrates the key roles and farreaching influence of Batang in nineteenth and twentieth century China and Tibet despite its isolated geographic location on the frontier between these two powers.
Polemics plague historical scholarship on Tibet written since the region’s liberation by
the People’s Liberation Army in 1951. While some scholars claim that Tibet has been “an inalienable part of Chinese territory since the 13th century,”1 others assert that “Tibet possessed both actual and formal independence…throughout its history” until 1951.2 The persistence of
similar rhetoric in the twenty-first century not only complicates China’s contemporary relations with Tibetans inside and outside its borders, but it also obfuscates our understanding of the complex nature of Tibet’s historical relationship with China. By critically analyzing the history of Batang, an ethnically Tibetan principality on the Sino-Tibetan frontier, during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, this dissertation will provide much needed historical perspective to the history of Tibet’s complicated and shifting relationship with China.
Batang is situated in Kham (Khams, 康區 or 西康), an ethnically Tibetan region separated from central Tibet by high mountains and precipitous river valleys that today makes up
1 Yang Gongsu, “The Origin and Analysis of the Schemes of the So-called ‘Independence For Tibet’,” Theses on
Tibetology in China, ed. Hu Tan (Beijing: China Tibetology Press, 1991), 290.
2 Michael van Walt van Praag. The Status of Tibet (Boulder: Westview Press, 1987), 140.
1much of western Sichuan Province and the eastern part of the Tibet Autonomous Region.3 Two commonly-held assumptions complicate the historical experience of Batang and Kham in general. The first assumption holds that the central Tibetan government in Lhasa maintained power throughout all areas inhabited by ethnic Tibetans, including Batang and Kham; the second, that Tibetans remained beyond direct Chinese influence until the arrival of the People’s Liberation Army in the region in 1950. Batang’s historical experience belies both assumptions. To the contrary, while the Dalai Lama maintained significant spiritual authority in Batang and Kham, direct rule by central Tibetan officials was non-existent in Batang and rare throughout Kham in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. On the other hand, due to the sustained presence of Chinese officials, soldiers, and migrants in Kham, Chinese influence in the region was widespread, particularly in Batang.
This dissertation traces the growth of state power in Batang in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, a desultory process that eventually resulted in the region’s formal incorporation as Batang County in the new Chinese province of Xikang in 1939. The process of Batang’s integration into the Chinese state should not be told merely as a teleological story of coercive incorporation. Rather, I will demonstrate that local power holders—headmen; monastic leaders; central Tibetan, imperial, and Republican officials; and merchants—actively manipulated both Chinese and central Tibetan policies, institutions, and ideas to promote their own unique interests. While the coerciveness of state action in Batang should not be ignored, we must also consider the contingent nature of expansion on the Sino-Tibetan frontier. Local power holders in Batang successfully redirected the imperial and nation building projects of China and
3 In Tibetan areas, traditional toponyms only rarely are fully contiguous with the boundaries of contemporary administrative districts. Kham, for example, also includes the Deqing (迪慶) area of northwestern Yunnan (雲南) Province and portions of Chamdo (Chab mdo, 昌都, known in the Qing as 察木多) and Markham (Smar khams, 芒 康) in the Tibetan Autonomous Region (西藏自治區). I have made every attempt to clarify when traditional and contemporary toponyms diverge significantly.
2
Tibet in important ways and with lasting consequences. Closely analyzing changes in the way power holders understood and wielded their influence in Batang from 1842 to 1939, this dissertation presents as yet untold perspectives on the processes of the region’s gradual incorporation into the Qing Empire and the Republican nation-state.
Understanding the State: Tibet, Kham, and Batang
In his 1997 policy study, The Snow Lion and the Dragon: China, Tibet, and the Dalai
Lama, historian and anthropologist of Tibet Melvyn Goldstein addresses the historical roots of the Tibet Question, i.e., the long-standing conflict over the political status of Tibet in relation to China.4 A fundamental aspect of this question involves the nature of Tibet itself. As twentieth
century scholarship on Tibet has shown, any attempt to describe “Tibet” as a region is fraught
with contentious political implications, but it is precisely because of its contentiousness that we must briefly consider this question. Sir Charles Bell, former British officer and close friend of the 13th Dalai Lama (1876-1933), was the first author to attempt to explain in English what has become the paradigmatic description of Tibet. In the early twentieth century there existed, Bell argued, two Tibets: a political Tibet and an ethnographic Tibet.5 Writing almost forty years later, Hugh Richardson, a British diplomat who served in Lhasa as an official of the colonial Indian government in the 1930s and 1940s, explained Bell’s distinction:
In “political” Tibet the Tibetan government have [sic] ruled continuously from the
earliest times down to 1951. The region beyond that to the north and east [Amdo and Kham]…is its “ethnographic” extension which people of Tibetan race once inhabited
exclusively and where they are still in the majority. In that wider area, “political” Tibet
4 Melvyn C. Goldstein, The Snow Lion and the Dragon: China, Tibet, and the Dalai Lama (Berkeley: University
of California Press, 1997).
5 Charles Bell, Tibet: Past and Present (1924; reprint, New Delhi: Asian Educational Services, 1992), 5-8. For a
critique of British influence on the question of Tibet’s sovereignty and identity, see Dibyesh Anand, “Strategic Hypocrisy: The British Imperial Scripting of Tibet’s Geopolitical Identity,” The Journal of Asian Studies 68, no. 1
(2009): 227-252.
3exercised jurisdiction only in certain places and at irregular intervals; for the most part, local lay or monastic chiefs were in control of districts of varying size. From the 18th century onwards the region was subject to sporadic Chinese infiltration.6
Today, “political” Tibet is roughly contiguous with the Tibet Autonomous Region as demarcated
by the People’s Republic of China. Known in Tibetan as Ü-Tsang (Dbus Gtsang, 衛藏), scholars
generally agree that “political” Tibet encapsulates the territory over which the Dalai Lamas
maintained effective and generally uninterrupted sovereignty via the Ganden Phodrang (Dga’ ldan Pho brang) government until the arrival of the People’s Liberation Army in 1950-1951. When scholars refer to central Tibet, they are generally speaking of Bell’s “political” Tibet. I, too, have adopted this convention.
“Ethnographic” Tibet, on the other hand, is much larger.7 It includes the Ü-Tsang regions, as well as Tibetan-inhabited areas of Qinghai and southern Gansu Provinces to the northeast, known in Tibetan as Amdo (A Mdo, 安多); and western Sichuan and northwestern Yunnan Provinces to the east, commonly referred to as Kham. During the period of this study, ethnographic Tibet was predominantly Tibetan, but Han, Hui, and other ethnic groups lived in many areas on the Tibetan plateau. Most of these non-Tibetans were soldiers attached to Qing garrisons along the main trade routes through the region, but there were also small communities of Han and Hui merchants in many towns in ethnographic Tibet. By the mid-eighteenth century, for example, Batang was home to over eighty Han families. Small in number and almost always male, non-Tibetan migrants frequently intermarried with Tibetans while attempting to preserve their Confucian traditions in a foreign cultural environment. Among these traditions, an emphasis
6 Hugh Richardson, Tibet and Its History (1962; reprint, Boston: Shambhala, 1986), 1-2. 7 See Map 1: Ethnographic Tibet in the Qing Empire.
4on education for young people would eventually stimulate dramatic change in Batang and, by extension, in Tibetan history.
As Richardson notes above, the Tibetan government did not maintain sovereignty over all of ethnographic Tibet, but that was not always the case. The peak of Tibet’s political power occurred under the leadership of Songtsen Gampo (Srong btsan Sgam po, c.609-649), who unified Tibetans across the plateau and initiated a kingdom that saw unrivaled political power and cultural growth for two centuries.8 However, it was only during this period of kings that political Tibet encompassed all of ethnographic Tibet. With the gradual decline of central authority in Lhasa, political Tibet gradually decreased in size, the empire fragmented, and a collection of independent principalities, especially in the frontier regions of Amdo and Kham between China proper and central Tibet, arose in place of a centralized imperial government with its capital in Lhasa. From the ninth to the sixteenth centuries, secular elites and religious leaders in these two areas ruled relatively small and isolated principalities with little outside influence. Even when the powerful Sakya (Sa skya) religious leader Sakya Pandita (1182-1251) initiated the “priest-patron” (mchod-yon) relationship with the Mongols in the thirteenth century, thereby effectively incorporating Tibet in the Mongol empire, minor kingdoms on the Kham and Amdo frontiers remained largely independent of central Tibetan control. It was only with the expansion of the Gelug (Dge lugs) tradition in the sixteenth century under the leadership of Sonam Gyatso (Bsod nams Rgya mtsho, 1543-1588), who was later given the title Dalai Lama by his powerful Mongol patron, that central Tibet again re-exerted its power into Amdo and Kham. Nevertheless, a dearth of local level historical documents prevents us from determining the extent of central Tibetan political influence in most areas along the Sino-Tibetan frontier throughout much of Tibet’s history. In fact, it is not until the early eighteenth century with the arrival of Qing soldiers