Why Chinese media says US historians are giving ‘ammunition’ to separatists

As ethnic issues grow ever more sensitive, Beijing is alleging the New Qing History movement seeks to fracture the nation

China has stepped up its offensive against a US-born school of thought on China’s last imperial dynasty, accusing it of providing “theoretical ammunition” for attempts to divide the country.

An article published by the state-run China Ethnic News last Monday warned that New Qing History was “seriously eroding the historical foundations of the community for the Chinese nation in the real world” and should be “forcefully refuted”.

That marked the latest broadside in a two-year campaign by the outlet to attack the loosely defined scholarly movement, which began to take shape in the late 1980s.

Rather than being an organised movement with a unified doctrine, New Qing History refers to a broad revisionist approach to understanding how the Manchu-led Qing managed both China’s Han majority and the many other ethnic groups under their rule.

Scholars taking this approach have drawn on Manchu-language sources to question the long-held assumption that “Sinicisation” – the idea that conquerors of China and even neighbouring peoples were transformed by Chinese culture, often portrayed as a spontaneous and largely one-way process – was the only explanation.