Ronald C. Po’s research while affiliated with London School of Economics and Political Science and other places

For over two centuries, prominent officials, literary figures, and intellectuals in China have paid special attention to the legacy of Shi Lang. Compared to many other historical figures, Shi Lang remains essential to our understanding of the cross-strait tension and the murky outlook for its future. Although the image of Shi Lang continues to mean different things to different individuals, to some degree, his significance to one particular community is also communicated to other communities. By analysing most of the previous appraisals and examinations of Shi Lang, we can reveal the historical narratives of this man as being continually under construction in a shifting and mutually reinforcing process. This article aims to examine the ways in which the legacy of Shi Lang has percolated throughout Chinese history, since the Qing dynasty, and also how it continues to function in the present day. It is fascinating to not only delineate how the story of Shi Lang has evolved as a legacy, but also to explore the rich variety of ways in which an individual or a community has adapted the narratives that make up the story of Shi Lang to suit the demands of different historical settings and perspectives.

Silk, Slaves, and Stupas: Material Culture of the Silk Road. By Susan Whitfield. Oakland: University of California Press, 2018. xi, 339 pp. ISBN: 9780520281783 (paper, also available in cloth and as e-book). - Volume 78 Issue 1 - Ronald C. Po

If we were asked to recall a coastal city of early modern China, most of us would choose Shanghai, Canton, Xiamen, or Macau. These port cities became famous for facilitating trans-regional sea trade that linked the Qing Empire to the rest of the world. Attentive observers know that all of these cities are located on the Southeast China coast, by which we mean the coastal areas south of Shanghai. Taking Shanghai as the dividing line between the northeastern and southeastern coastlines, the port cities of the south are far more likely to be familiar to us than are those of the north. I consider this phenomenon (i.e. the focus on the coast of early modern China) to be a “Southeast China centrism.” And although we might all concede that some southeastern seaports were vital to transoceanic interactions, it is shortsighted to ignore the northern port cities and the role they played in connecting China with the maritime world. In this article I investigate the importance of Northeast China's port cities by focusing particular attention on the less familiar coastal seaport of Dengzhou. By detailing and examining the political and economic importance of this port city in the early modern period, I will show that Qing China's northeastern coast was no less important than the southeast. Even if China's northern port cities might not have been as economically vibrant as those in the south, we should not overlook their functions and histories. Indeed, they also attained unique patterns of political and economic development throughout the long eighteenth century.

This article surveys a Chinese coastal map (haitu), similar to the sea charts used in the west. The map was produced in the late eighteenth century under the official supervision of the Qing court. Titled Qisheng yanhai tu (A coastal map of the seven provinces), this was one of very few maps made before the First Opium War that charted the contours of coastal regions and the immediate sea space under the control of the Qing Empire. It is also notable for the detailed paratextual information printed on the map touching upon various issues, such as the importance of coastal defense, the significance of the Bohai Sea, the dividing logic between inner and outer sea spaces, as well as the topographies of strategic islands off the China coast. In line with cartographic depictions, these paratextual materials indicate the way that the Manchu Empire conceptualized the maritime frontier in a deliberate and preventive manner. Through careful analysis of this coastal map, we can reexamine the overriding, conventional conception of the Qing Empire as strictly a land-based, continental power that cared little about the ocean before the arrival of western gunboats in the mid-nineteenth century