Kong and Cathay Pacific is closely linked to the history of the British empire, decolonization and the Cold War. Rather than oversimplifying the process with "globalization," it was the unpredictable ways in which changing global dynamics interacted with shifting regional geopolitics and domestic developments that turned Hong Kong into a global nexus and aviation hub. This book therefore makes important contributions to our understanding of history and will be of great interest to audiences within and beyond academia.
The fascinating life story of Wangchuk Tempa (1886-1961), a fierce defender of local autonomy in Gyelthang, illustrates how the Chinese Communist Party utilized the power and charisma of local political and religious leaders to consolidate its rule in southern Kham between 1950 and 1958. Wangchuk Tempa's legendary actions reveal that 'collaboration' is too simplistic a concept to explain why some local leaders joined forces with representatives of the Chinese state in response to mounting social and political pressures in the 1950s. Party officials turned to 'political persuasion' to entice recalcitrant Khampa leaders, such as Wangchuk Tempa, to cooperate, and they strategically granted pre-revolutionary local elites positions in the post-1950 government, in order to strengthen nascent Party control in Gyelthang.
Frontier Tibet: Patterns of Change in the Sino-Tibetan Borderlands addresses a historical sequence that sealed the future of the Sino-Tibetan borderlands. It considers how starting in the late nineteenth century imperial formations and emerging nation-states developed competing schemes of integration and debated about where the border between China and Tibet should be. It also ponders the ways in which this border is internalised today, creating within the People’s Republic of China a space that retains some characteristics of a historical frontier. The region of eastern Tibet called Kham, the focus of this volume, is a productive lens through which processes of place-making and frontier dynamics can be analysed. Using historical records and ethnography, the authors challenge purely externalist approaches to convey a sense of Kham’s own centrality and the agency of the actors involved. They contribute to a history from below that is relevant to the history of China and Tibet, and of comparative value for borderland studies.
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