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《Borderland Studies in China》
Northeast Asian History
Foundation│2014

Since 2003, the "Northeast Project" conducted by some Chinese scholars gained much attention in South Korean society. Despite the considerable amount of research South Korean academics have been doing since then regarding the Northeast Project, such research has been focused on only a few fields or areas. Moreover, interest in the project has barely traveled beyond historical studies over into political science or other fields of social science. There have also been very few cases in historical or geographical studies that have covered other projects necessary to understanding the Northeast Project. The book "Borderland Studies in China" contains a comprehensive report about research projects on borderlands that have been conducted in Chinese academia.

China's land now shares its border with 14 different countries and its maritime boundary with 6 different countries. Most of the 55 different ethnic minorities in China live in borderlands referred to as "bianjiang" (邊疆 border region). Borderlands and ethnicities are issues central to China's development strategy and future plans, which it can therefore not afford to neglect. That is why Chinese academia has been conducting government-run projects on borderland issues, turned "borderland studies" into an individual academic field and is working on its systematization.

Since the Northeast Project's launch in 2002, borderland studies in China has been pursuing five major research subjects: the Northeast Project focuses on northeast China, the Xinjiang Project on the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, the Southwest Project on southwest China centered around Yunnan and Guizhou, the Xizang Project on Tibet, and the Beijiang Project on northern borderlands mainly around Inner Mongolia.

The First Compilation of Investigations on China's Five Major Borderland Research Projects

The five major borderland research projects in China have been conducted under different time frames. Borderland studies were headed by two projects around 2004, but after 2008, research expanded to the southwest, Tibet, and the northern borderlands. These borderland studies could be considered as the construction of an "academic Great Wall" in China aimed at stabilizing the ethnic minorities living in border regions and at being prepared in advance against potential border issues. Almost no investigation or studies has been done in South Korea on China's borderland research projects apart from the Northeast Project. This book is thus the first compilation offered to Korean academia about investigations that have been done on Chinese studies on border regions.

This book offers a compilation of the progress each research project made and an analysis of the projects against comparable projects in other research categories so as to determine the historical and realistic implications the projects carry. An outline of the book's table of contents are as follows: an introduction providing an overview of borderland research projects in China, the outcome and effects of the Northeast borderland research project, the outcome and effects of the Xinjiang Project, the current status and achievements of the Southwest Project, the current status and operation of the Xizang Project, the current status and operation of the Beijiang Project, and a supplementary chapter on the "Steppe Project," a multi-purpose cultural research project. This is the first South Korean attempt to analyze the Steppe Project which is a large-scale ten-year national research project on culture that has been initiated for economic purposes.

Borderland research projects are conducted at a national level in China, albeit not in perfect order. The Northeast Project, with an intimate connection to Korean history, started during the tenth five-year plan (2001-2005) and has become a model for other large-scale borderland research projects. The five major project components established through the Northeast Project are basic research, research on archival documents, translating, building an information database, and authoring publications for mass-distribution. These project components are similar to those of the Xinjiang Project. Such projects can be understood to have played a dual role of supporting the idea of a "unified multi-ethnic country" proposed by Chinese scholars, while acting as a matrix and testing platform to build a framework for borderland studies in China.

China is putting in as much effort into publishing as it is into research. Since 2012, the publishing company Heilongjiang jiaoyu chubanshe (黑龙江教育出版社) has been issuing an extensive research series on historical geography under the name "Zhongguo bianjiang yanjiu wenku" (中國邊疆研究文庫 Chinese Borderland Research Series). Part one, which gives an introduction and annotation of rare modern masterpieces on border regions and part two of the series consist of fifty volumes each, which either fall under the categories of the Northeast, North, Northwest, Southwest areas, maritime boundaries, or are general volumes.

Multi-dimensional Understanding of Large-scale Borderland Research Projects

By focusing mostly on the Northeast Project, investigations Korean scholars have so far done has certainly deterred them being able to look at the bigger picture. Yet, this book only manages to cover research projects about border regions on land. Academic appraisal of other various border region research projects shall require more comprehensive studies based on detailed investigation and analysis. This book may be considered a groundwork for what is to come next.

It is impossible to say that large-scale borderland research projects in China have no bearing on China's long-range plans, strategies toward East Asia, Eurasia, and even the world. It is often said that the Communist Party of China plans to finish building a foundation for the rise of China by 2021, the year marking a century since the party was founded, and plans to turn China into a truly global nation by 2049, the year marking a century since the People's Republic of China was founded. China's borderland studies give the impression that they remain focused on tidying things up internally, but projects involving maritime boundaries analyze China as well as areas beyond it that fall under its influence. The "One Belt, One Road" (一帶一路) that has recently surfaced as a hot topic may be considered the launch of China's full-fledged strategy targeting Eurasia.

This book shall only be able to offer extremely limited assistance in grasping details of borderland studies in China or the bigger picture they belong to. Nevertheless, it shall at least be able to help gain a multi-dimensional understanding of large-scale research projects on border regions such as the Northeast Project. It shall also be able to contribute to understanding relevant academic trends so that more productive scholarly exchange may internationally take place.