Organizer: Michael C. Brose, University of Pennsylvania
Chair and Discussant: Pamela Crossley, Dartmouth College
In traditional readings of Chinese history, identity and loyalty are presented as products of an assumed nascent Chinese consciousness that gradually emerges into a dominating motif of racial or cultural purity. This is most visible at points of rupture or challenges to the dynasty, where group identity governs loyalties. As a challenge to this sinocentric-nationalist narrative, it may be useful to examine alternate modes of identity construction. We can conceptualize Chinese society as composed of fluid boundaries between groups that are responsive to a variety of discourses, such as class or religion. Identity and loyalties are the result of interactions among different communities, each with their own agenda, worldview and definition of self.
In this panel we will examine some specific alternative narratives that shaped the identity and loyalties of various officials and members of the elite. How did Chinese and foreigners understand themselves and each other? What claims to loyalty were exerted by the state or by other "communities"? What seemingly sharp social or political boundaries were bridged or maintained to construct and define society in Tang through Yuan China?
Naomi Standen will investigate the group identity and loyalties of Tang "collaborators" with An Lushan. Irene Leung will examine narratives of the Other in Song paintings of Cai Wenji, and relationship to contradictions in Song foreign relations. Paul Forage will investigate ethnic Chinese who served under the Jin. Michael Brose will examine identity formation among Central Asian elite in China in the Yuan and early Ming period. Pamela Crossely will be the panel discussant.
The Trials of the An Lushan Collaborators: Loyalty and Identity in Theory and
Practice
Naomi Standen, Oxford University
The An Lushan rebellions produced a crop of outstandingly heroic Tang loyalists, but their extreme actions only point up the contrast with the many more officials who "collaborated" with An and his cohorts. After the restoration, many of these "collaborators" were humiliated, tried, exiled, and even executed. Although most were ultimately pardoned, Li Hua, most notably, felt himself unworthy to accept office again. The whole traumatic affair spawned extensive discussion of the meaning of loyalty (zhong).
Loyalties define identities, and this paper discusses the contemporary view of the collaborators in the context of ideas about zhong, in order to examine how notions of loyalty and identity, allegiance and belonging, were revised in the light of the recent calamity. The historical account of the collaborators' treatment is curiously sparse, but biographies and private writings can fill some gaps. What do the motivations, justifications, and lamentations of the collaborators and their contemporaries show of how they saw themselves in relation to the emperor as an individual, the institution of the imperial throne, the official hierarchy, and "China"? What was their identity attached to, and did this change if they took service with the rebels? In other words, how did mid-Tang officials define and interpret their allegiances? And thus what kind of group identity did they have, if any?
Power and Ethnicity in North China in the Early Twelfth Century
Paul C. Forage, University of Michigan
During the 1120s the Song Chinese and the Jurchen Jin competed for supremacy in North China. Though this competition was predominantly military, the struggle for the allegiance of local ethnic populations-Chinese, Xi, Khitan, Jurchen, and Bohai-was an equally important, if not crucial, element of this competition for later Chinese commentators and critics.
The struggle proved disastrous for the Song as their officials alienated potential supporters and allies. This paper will examine in detail the careers of two frontier figures, Zhang Jue, a Chinese official who first served under the Khitan Liao, then later under the Song, and Guo Yaoshi, a Bohai, first a commander under the Khitan, then advisor to the Song, and finally an informer to the Jurchen Jin. These case studies highlight tensions at two different levels: tensions and contradictions in the imperial narrative created by the Song and the Jin, and tensions reflected by the shifting coalitions and affiliations of the local ethnic communities themselves.
For the Song, what did it mean to be Chinese; should the empire include or exclude non-Chinese ethnicities; and did the decline of Song power increasingly define their notion of empire along more proto-nationalist lines? For the Jin, how could they consolidate power in North China and forge an imperial identity that could capture their political pretensions and still remain distinct from both the Song and the Liao empires. In other words, how and why did the Song and Jin alike articulate state power in ethnic, if not racial terms in the early 12th century.
Conflicts of Loyalty in Twelfth-Century China: The Multiple Narratives of Cai
Wenji
Irene S. Leung, University of Michigan
In modern conceptions of nationalism, loyalty becomes a contested moral issue when established geo-political and ethnic boundaries are violated. My paper examines the conflicted identities of Cai Wenji as produced in the twelfth-century illustration to the eighth-century poem "Eighteen Songs of a Nomad Flute."
A Han woman captured by a Xiongnu tribe in the 190s, Wenji bore two children for a "barbarian" prince, but was ransomed and returned to China twelve years later. Recent scholars have interpreted the illustration in the context of the 1128 Jin invasion and the Southern Song court's "dynastic revival" wherein Wenji's return to China not only testifies to her loyalty to her ancestors and the state, but also demonstrates Chinese culture's ultimate triumph over barbarism.
In this paper I argue that such an interpretation is biased towards a modern construction of a sinocentric discourse. In fact, Wenji's loyalty to China is complicated by her role both as a "Chinese" daughter and as the mother of "barbarian" children. The dynamics of text and image in the twelfth-century narrative painting reveal an emotional bond to the children that transgresses ethnic and national boundaries. I argue that Wenji's identity is not bounded by a rigid notion of ethnic or national allegiance to the geo-political construction of "China." Instead, the twelfth-century representation of Wenji's conflict of loyalty clearly indicates a more complicated Song dynasty construction of the Other.
Construction of Identity Among Central Asian Elites in Yuan and Early Ming China
Michael C. Brose, University of Pennsylvania
The Yuan dynasty is often portrayed as a low point in Chinese history, the first time the "other" ruled all of China, where race was the dominant narrative used to organize society. Here, the Mongol four-tiered organization of Yuan society is thus a series of racially-determined categories that segmented society and prevented substantial interaction between foreigner and Chinese. Where any interaction did occur, it is presented as the sinicization of the foreigner. However, a closer look at Yuan social history reveals a surprising amount of interchange between Semu and Chinese elite.
In this paper I will examine the history of a prominent Uighur family, the Xie family, as a case study of Central Asian elites who transcended their classification as Semu (and the supposedly hard racial boundary) to attain high status as elites in local society.
The Xie family were high level Uighur aristocrats who, as immigrant elites, were well-known throughout Yuan and early Ming as officials and writers of distinction.
In order to better understand how identity was formed and functioned in multi-racial Yuan society, I hope to study this period from perspectives that have been largely neglected. These include: the communal nature of elite migration and the effect on existing categories of community in China; the Mongol worldview and rationale in social organization; and regional and diachronic variations and comparisons of the lives and functions of the elite. Questions such as the importance of ethnicity in social relations, and the role foreign elites played in Chinese society and culture may become clearer in future studies of Yuan history.