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WHAT'S IN A NAME: ZHONGGUO (OR ‘MIDDLE KINGDOM’) RECONSIDERED*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 July 2015

LUKE S. K. KWONG
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Abstract

Western writers have long criticized the Chinese term Zhongguo, translated as ‘Middle Kingdom’, for its ethnocentric purport. This article proposes to address this criticism by re-examining salient features of Zhongguo's etymological past. The discussion is divided into two parts. The first part offers an overview of the term's historical usage and argues that contrary to the common view, Zhongguo as applied to the imagined whole of Chinese political and cultural traditions or to any of its discrete period segments had not been employed primarily as an ethnocentric expression but as a simple identity label. The second part revisits a late Qing (c. 1861–1912) episode in which Chinese writers made a rare, if not unprecedented, attempt to dispute and, indeed, to reject the name in light of the foreign criticism. Though their arguments did not, in the end, alter how nationalists named the Chinese nation, these debates revealed a cultural posture that became prevalent as educated Chinese negotiated the crossroads of modernity.

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Articles
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The Historical Journal , Volume 58 , Issue 3 , September 2015 , pp. 781 - 804
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2015 

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Footnotes

*

I wish to thank the anonymous readers for their helpful comments. This article is for Darcy who rekindled my interest in the project and for Marcus and Vera who sustained it to the end.

References

1 See Barbara A. Holdrege, Veda and Torah: transcending the textuality of scripture (Albany, NY, 1996), p. 110.

2 Richard Eden, The first three English books on America, ed. Edward Arber (Birmingham, 1885), p. 344. Other references to China in Eden's translation appear on pp. 260–1, 267, 272, 339, 347. I consulted a copy of the work deposited at the University of British Columbia library. For Eden's life, see Gwyn, David, ‘Richard Eden cosmographer and alchemist’, Sixteenth Century Journal, 1 (1984), pp. 13–34CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For reference to the first English use of China, see Compact edition of the Oxford English dictionary (Oxford, 1971), p. 398.

3 For a discussion of the foreign names for China, see Henry Yule, Cathay and the way thither, revised edn by Henri Cordier (1913–16; Nandeln, Liechtenstein, 1967), i; Thomas Salmon, Modern history: or, the present state of all nations (31 vols., London, 1725–38), i, p. 8; Henri Cordier, ‘China’, in The Catholic encyclopedia, ed. Charles G. Herbermann et al. (15 vols., New York, NY, 1907–12), iii, pp. 663–88, esp. p. 663; Hu Axiang, Weizai siming (Great is this name) (Wuhan, 2000), pp. 329–9; Xushan, Zhang, ‘The name of China and its geography in Cosmas Indicopleustes’, Byzantion, 75 (2004), pp. 453–62Google Scholar; Chen Dengyuan, Guoming shugu (History of our national name) (Shanghai, 1936), p. 64.

4 For his life and work, see Frederick Wells Williams, The life and letters of Samuel Wells Williams, LL.D. (New York, NY, and London, 1889); also Bailey, James, ‘Samuel Wells Williams, LL.D.’, Journal of the American Geographical Society of New York, 16 (1884), pp. 186–93Google Scholar.

5 Romanization of Chinese characters in this article will follow the pinyin system. Where the context requires a word romanized according to a different or obsolete system, the pinyin version will also be provided.

6 Samuel Wells Williams, The Middle Kingdom (2 vols., New York, NY, and London, 1848), i, pp. 3–5.

7 Ibid., p. xv. Kenneth Scott Latourette, an influential American writer on China in the early twentieth century, concurred, ‘The most frequent name employed was Chung Kuo – “The Middle Kingdom”.’ See his work, The Chinese, their history and culture (2 vols., London, 1934), i, p. 1; also see Arthur F. Wright, ‘Generalization in Chinese history’, in Louis Gottschalk, ed., Generalization in the writing of history (Chicago, IL, 1963), pp. 36–58, especially pp. 39, 43.

8 Williams, Middle Kingdom, i, pp. xv, 3.

9 Williams reiterated these points in ‘China: the country and people’, Journal of the American Geographical Society of New York, 8 (1876), pp. 269–84CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For a pertinent discussion of the Christian perspective, see John K. Fairbank, ‘Introduction’ and various essays in Suzanne Wilson Barnett and John K. Fairbank, eds., Christianity in China (Cambridge, MA, 1985). For nineteenth-century theories of cultural stages and progress, see Marvin Harris, The rise of anthropological theory (New York, NY, 1968).

10 For the notion of Orientalism, see the classic work by Edward Said, Orientalism (New York, NY, 1978). For a discussion of Occidentalism in the Chinese context, see Xiaomei Chen, Occidentalism: a theory of counter-discourse in post-Mao China (2nd edn, Lanham, MD, 2002). For an interpretation in terms of cultural confrontation or ‘the venomous brew we call Occidentalism’, see Ian Buruma and Avishai Margalit, Occidentalism, the West in the eyes of its enemies (New York, NY, 2004), quote on p. 10.

11 See Valentine Chirol, The Far Eastern question (London, 1896), p. 195; David Scott, China and the international system, 1840–1949 (Albany, NY, 2008), pp. 3, 9; Anthony D'Agostino, The rise of global powers: international politics in the era of the world wars (New York, NY, 2012), p. 204. For Western views that reinforced the image of the Chinese as a weaker race and of Qing China as a ‘sick man’, see Carol A. Benedict, Bubonic plague in nineteenth-century China (Stanford, CA, 1996), p. 166; Heinrich, Larissa N., ‘How China became the “cradle of smallpox”: transformations in discourse, 1721–2002’, Positions, 1 (2007), pp. 7–34CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and The afterlife of images: translating the pathological body between China and the West (Durham, NC, 2008). For the shifting significance of the expression to Chinese nationalists, see Yang Ruisong, ‘Xiangxiang minzu chiyu: jindai Zhongguo sixiang wenhua shi shang di “Dongya bingfu’’’ (Imagining national humiliation: ‘The sick man of East Asia’ in modern Chinese intellectual and cultural history), Guoli zhengzhi daxue lishi xuebao (History journal of the National Zhengzhi University), 23 (2005), pp. 1–44.

12 Earlier Jesuit scholars like A. Kircher and Jean-Baptiste du Halde had already alluded to it. For Kircher, see his excerpted writings in the appendix in John Nieuhoff, An embassy from the East-India Company of the United Provinces to the grand tartar cham emperor of China, trans. John Ogilby (2nd edn, London, 1673), pp. 322, 402; for du Halde, see his The general history of China, trans. R. Brookes (3rd edn, 4 vols., London, 1741), i, p. 1.

13 Harold Isaacs, Images of Asia (New York, NY, 1962), p. 71.

14 Jonathan D. Spence, The China helpers, Western advisers in China, 1620–1960 (London, 1969). A notable example was the effort made by the well-known Baptist missionary Timothy Richard through the publications of the Society for the Diffusion of Christian and General Knowledge among the Chinese in Shanghai. See his collected writings in Conversion by the million in China (2 vols., Shanghai, 1907). The inspector-general of the Chinese Maritime Customs Sir Robert Hart was another who placed hope in China's future on Western-inspired reforms. See his circular to the commissioners of customs (21 June 1864) as appendix D in H. B. Morse, The international relations of the Chinese empire (3 vols., London, 1910–18), iii, pp. 453–60; for a discussion of Hart's three Chinese memorials to the Qing government on reform, see Kuang Zhaojiang, ‘Junei junwai di kunhuo: Hede Pangguan sanlun duhou’ (The insider/outsider quandary: a reading of Robert Hart's Three essays by a bystander), in Dai Yifeng, ed., Zhongguo haiguan yu Zhongguo jindai shehui (The Chinese Maritime Customs and modern Chinese society) (Xiamen, 2005), pp. 25–45. Imperialism in late Qing China is a highly complex problem. For a discussion of some of the Western approaches to the Qing state from the mid-nineteenth century to the Boxer incident (1900), see James Hevia, English lessons: the pedagogy of imperialism in nineteenth-century China (Durham, NC, 2003).

15 In an earlier article, I discussed the spatial emphases (directional and locational) of the Chinese conception of worldview and of collective identity and cited Zhongguo as one of the language devices in its articulation. See Kwong, Luke S. K., ‘The myth of universal kingship and Commissioner Lin Zexu's anti-opium campaign of 1839’, English Historical Review, 123 (2008), pp. 1470–503CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The current article proposes to re-examine more fully and directly the history and uses of Zhongguo in an effort to refine the treatment of the term.

16 Yu Shengwu, ‘Xi Zhongguo’ (On the etymology of Zhongguo), in Zhonghua shuju bianjibu, ed., Zhonghua xueshu lunwenji (Essays on Chinese culture) (Beijing, 1981), pp. 5–9; Wang Ermin, Zhongguo jindai sixiangshi lun (Essays on modern Chinese intellectual history) (Taibei, 1977), pp. 441–80; Chen, Guoming, pp. 13–17; Hu Axiang, ‘Zhongguo minghao kaoshu’ (A discussion of the name Zhongguo), Lishi dili (Historical geography), 17 (2001), pp. 82–97, and his Weizai, pp. 252–91.

17 Endymion Wilkinson, Chinese history: a manual (Cambridge, MA, 2000), p. 132.

18 Conrad Shirokauer et al., A brief history of Chinese and Japanese civilizations (3rd edn, Belmont, CA, 2005), p. 6.

19 John Fitzgerald, Awakening China (Stanford, CA, 1996), p. 366 n. 49.

20 Hu, Weizai, p. 253. Hu seems to contradict himself by acknowledging elsewhere the traditional use of Zhongguo in the political sense (pp. 264, 271).

21 For the explanation of the two characters separately and as a joined expression, I follow Yu, ‘Xi Zhongguo’.

22 For the Shang conception of the centre and the four cardinal directions, see Hu Houxuan, ‘Lun wufang guannian ji Zhongguo chengwei zhi qiyuan’ (On the conception of the centre and the four directions and the origins of the name Zhongguo’, in his Jiaguxue Shang shi luncong chuji (A preliminary collection of essays on Shang history based on the study of oracle bones) (Beijing, 1944), pp. 1–4.

23 See, for instance, Hu, Weizai, pp. 257–61; also, Wang, Zhongguo jindai, p. 442.

24 Sishu wujing (The Four Books and Five Classics) (Beijing, 1985), i:Shujing (The classic of history), p. 95.

25 For a succinct discussion of this process, see Chang Kwang-chih, Art, myth, and ritual (Cambridge, MA, 1983). For an insightful study of various aspects of ancient China, see the essays in Michael Loewe and Edward L. Shaughnessy, eds., The Cambridge history of ancient China (Cambridge, 1999).

26 See Hu, Weizai, pp. 243, 250 n. 2.

27 On Hua and Xia as ancient Chinese collective self-labels, see E. G. Pulleyblank, ‘The Chinese and their neighbors in prehistoric and early historic times’, in David Keightley, ed., The origins of Chinese civilization (Berkeley, CA, 1983), pp. 411–66.

28 Zhang Binglin, Zhang Taiyan quan ji (The complete works of Zhang Binglin) (6 vols., Shanghai, 1982–6), iv, p. 252. For a similar contemporary view based on the Qing scholar Duan Yucai's annotations of Xu Shun's Shuowen jiezi (Explanation of writing systems and characters), see Liu Shipei, ‘Rangshu’ (Repelling outsiders), in Liu Shipei quanji (The complete works of Liu Shipei) (4 vols., Beijing, 1997), i, p. 2.

29 Ban Gu, Han shu (History of the Han dynasty) (12 vols., Beijing, 1983), i, p. 8.

30 For his travels, see Derk Bodde, ‘The state and empire of Ch'in’, in Denis Twitchett and Michael Loewe, eds., The Cambridge history of China (15 vols., Cambridge, 1978– ), i, pp. 66–8; for the history of feng and shan ceremonies to the early Han, including the Qin practices, see Sima Qian, Shiji (Records of the grand scribe) (Beijing, 1959), pp. 1355–404, 1366–70. Also, see Gu Jiegang, Qin Han di fangshi yu rusheng (The conjurer and the scholar of the Qin and Han periods) (Hong Kong, n.d.), pp. 6–8.

31 For an analysis of the inscriptions on the Qin steles, see Martin Kern, The stele inscriptions of Ch'in Shih-huang: text and ritual in early Chinese imperial representation (New Haven, CT, 2000).

32 Sima, Shiji, p. 245.

33 Ibid., pp. 242–7, 249–50, 260–2.

34 Based on the edition of Sima, Shiji, cited in n. 30.

35 Ibid., pp. 1027, 1439, 2697–8, 2894.

36 See, especially, his tribute to Confucius, ibid., p. 1947.

37 Ibid., pp. 468, 1347, 1393.

38 For Sima Qian's reference to the Xiongnu problem, see ibid., pp. 2879–920. Also, see Nicola Di Cosmo, Ancient China and its enemies: the rise of nomadic power in East Asian history (Cambridge, 2002).

39 See, for instance, Sima, Shiji, pp. 3157–80, esp. p. 3166. As is well known, Han writers also applied Da to the powerful state situated at the other end of the Asian landmass as Da Qin, i.e., the Roman empire or Roman Orient. For a discussion, see Kurakichi, Shiratori, ‘Chinese ideas reflected in the Ta-ch'in accounts’ and ‘The geography of the western region studied on the basis of the Ta-ch'in accounts’, Memoirs of the Research Department of the Toyo Bunko, 15 (1956), pp. 25–72, 73–163Google Scholar.

40 Sima, Shiji, p. 1347.

41 See his essay ‘Lun lidai zhengtong’ (On the legitimate succession of dynasties), excerpted in Rao Zongyi, Zhongguo shixue shang zhi zhengtong lun (The theory of legitimate succession in Chinese historiography) (Hong Kong, 1977), pp. 158–62, esp. p. 160.

42 See Jing-shen Tao, Two sons of heaven (Tucson, AZ, 1988), p. 35.

43 See Fu Bi's memorial in Li Tao, Xu Zizhi tongjian chang bian (A comprehensive supplement to the Zizhi tongjian) (Beijing, 1995), pp. 3639–45, esp. p. 3641; also, the memorial by Fan Zhongyan, ibid., p. 3636.

44 Wang Tieya, ed., Zhongwai jiu yuezhang huibian (Compilation of the old Sino-foreign treaties) (3 vols., Beijing, 1957), i, pp. 1–30.

45 For the Chinese version of the Qing treaties signed from the early 1840s on, see ibid., i.

46 The draft from the Grand Council archives is reproduced in full in Mao Haijian, ‘Wuxu bianfa qijian Guangxu di duiwai guannian di tiaoshi’ (Adjustment of the Guangxu emperor's view on foreign relations during the Hundred Days Reform), Lishi yanjiu (Historical research), 6 (2002), pp. 23–50.

47 See the discussion and excerpted materials in Rao, Zhongguo shixue. For a discussion of the issue involving rulers of minority descent, see On-cho Ng and Q Edward Wang, Mirroring the past (Honolulu, HI, 2005), ch. 6, esp. pp. 178–9.

48 See, for instance, Wang Fuzhi, Du Tongjian lun (Commentaries on Zizhi tongjian) (Beijing, 1975), pp. 364, 377–9, 431, 525, 736.

49 Xue Juzheng et al., Jiu Wudai shi (The old history of the Five Dynasties) (6 vols., Beijing, 1976); Ouyang Xiu, Xin Wudai shi (The new history of the Five Dynasties) (3 vols., Beijing, 1974).

50 Ouyang, Xin Wudai, p. 873. Also, see his essays on ‘legitimate succession’ (zhengtong) excerpted in Rao, Zhongguo shixue, pp. 74–85; Richard Davis, trans., Historical records of the Five Dynasties (New York, NY, 2004), pp. xlviii–xlix.

51 Davis, Historical records, pp. xliii–xliv.

52 Yu Rongchun, ‘Zhongguo yici di youlai yanbian ji qi yu minzu di guanxi’ (The origins and evolution of the term Zhongguo and its relations to ethnicity), Nei Menggu shehui kexue (Social sciences journal of Inner Mongolia), 2 (1986), pp. 75–80.

53 Song Lian et al., Yuan shi (History of the Yuan dynasty) (Beijing, 1976), p. 3769.

54 Ibid., pp. 138–9.

55 For Yongzheng's edicts and documents related to the case, see Shanghai shudian chubanshe, ed., Dayi juemi tan (On the Compilation to awaken the misled with cardinal principles) (Shanghai, 1999), esp. the first edict, pp. 133–8. For the episode, see Jonathan D. Spence, Treason by the book (New York, NY, 2001).

56 Shanghai shudian, ed., Dayi juemi, p. 135.

57 Huan Kuan, Yan tie lun jiaozhu (Salt and iron, with annotations), annotated by Wang Liqi (Shanghai, 1958), p. 100. Another Han author who alluded to Zhongguo's centrality in all of heaven and earth was Yang Xiong. See his Fa yan (Edifying words), in Wang Yixian and Zhang Guangbao, eds., Fa yan Qianfu lun (Combined edition of Edifying words and Treatise by a recluse (Beijing, 2002), p. 33.

58 Mircea Eliade, The sacred and the profane (New York, NY, 1959).

59 For his full essay, see Shi Jie, Culai ji (The writings of Shi Jie) (Taibei, 1973), juan 10:7–10b; the quote is on 7.

60 See his essay in Rao, Zhongguo shixue, p. 66.

61 Liu Yizheng, Zhongguo wenhua shi (A cultural history of China) (Taibei, 1961), p. 50. A comparable attempt to elaborate on zhong's meaning in terms of historical depth and cultural richness is Chen, Guoming, pp. 1–12.

62 See, for instance, Archie Lamont, Bright celestials: the Chinaman at home and abroad (London, 1894); Robert Fitzgerald, The statesmen snowbound (New York, NY, 1909), p. 90; Francis Edward Younghusband, Among the celestials (London, 1898); Mattison, Rich V., ‘Opium smoking among the celestials’, American Journal of Pharmacy, 4th ser., 9 (Apr. 1879), pp. 209–10Google Scholar. Samuel Wells Williams also reported terms like the Celestial Empire and the ‘long-tailed celestials’ (Middle Kingdom, i, pp. xv, 4).

63 Williams, Life and letters, p. 437.

64 Warren to MacDonald, 27 Apr. 1897, in Great Britain, Foreign Office (FO) 228:1257, 1897, To and from Hankow.

65 See, for instance, Gardner to Walsham, 27 Jan. 1892, in FO 228:1085, 1892, From Hankow; ‘Copy of resolution adopted at a general meeting of missionaries residing in Hankow and the neighbouring cities, held on July 12, 1895’, enclosed in Warren to O'Conor, 31 July 1895, in FO 228:1189, 1895, To and from Amoy and Hankow.

66 For the reform movement in Hunan, see Charlton Lewis, Prologue to the Chinese revolution (Cambridge, MA, 1976), pp. 40–68; also Luke S. K. Kwong, T'an Ssu-t'ung, 1865–1898 (Leiden, 1996), ch. 8. It was Tan Sitong who spoke of Hunan's survival in the event of the Qing collapse.

67 The publication began on 7 Mar. 1898. Eleven days later, the Xiang bao management decided that, due to the heavy workload, the daily would not publish on Sunday. See Xiang bao, 12 (GX [Guangxu]24/2/27) (Beijing, 1965), p. 89.

68 For the full poem, see Xiang bao, 27 (GX24/3/16), pp. 211–13; the quote is on p. 211.

69 Tan Sitong, Tan Sitong quanji (The complete works of Tan Sitong) (Beijing, 1981), pp. 123–5.

70 For a case-study on the making of a ‘new learning’ advocate and of an intellectual community comprising such individuals, see Kwong, T'an Ssu-t'ung, chs. v–vii. The discussion of race in late Qing is a very complex issue. Frank Dikötter's The discourse of race in modern China (Stanford, CA, 1992) is useful but tends to downplay, ill-advisedly, ‘Western influence’ in shaping Chinese opinion on the subject (pp. 65, 91).

71 For the letter, see Su Yu, ed., Yijiao congbian (Collected materials to safeguard the correct teachings) (Taibei, 1970), pp. 417–23.

72 Ye misquoted two characters of the poem, but this did not significantly change the meaning of the original. Su, Yijiao, p. 417. Compare his quoted lines to the poem's original wording in Xiang bao, 27 (GX24/3/16), p. 211.

73 Ye Dehui soon published a volume entitled Mingbian lu (Refutations), which included Pi's reply, his own letter, and his other writings against the ‘new learning’ being promoted in Hunan. A rare copy of this work is found in FO 233:125.v.53, CSO 1901 Misc. Much of this work was later reproduced in Su, Yijiao.

74 For a discussion of this multi-faceted conflict, see Zhaojiang, Kuang, ‘Hunan xinjiu dangzheng qianlun jian jieshao Mingbian lu’ (A discussion of the progressive–conservative confrontations in Hunan, with notes on Refutations), Lishi dang'an (Historical archives), 2 (1997), pp. 105–11Google Scholar.

75 See Xirui, Pi, ‘Shifutang weikan riji’ (Unpublished diary of Pi Xirui), GX24/2/29, in Hunan lishi jiliao (Historical materials on Hunan), 4 (1958), p. 120Google Scholar; also, his draft lectures in diary entries GX24/3/24, 29 and GX24/intercalary 3/19, 29, ibid., 1 (1959), pp. 89–92, 94–7, 103–6, 109–12.

76 Huang Zunxian, Riben guozhi (Treatises on Japan) (Taibei, 1982), p. 133.

77 Liang's work Zhongguo shi xu lun (An introduction to Chinese history) is collected in Liang Qichao quanji (Complete works of Liang Qichao), ed. Zhang Pinxing (10 vols., Beijing, 1999). For the quote, see i, p. 449. Liang made a similar point in an earlier essay (1900), ‘Zhongguo jiruo suyuan lun’ (Tracing the causes of China's accumulated weakness), ibid., p. 413.

78 Li Xueqin et al., eds., Shisanjing zhushu (Annotations of the Thirteen Classics) (13 vols., Beijing, 1999), vi:Liji zhengyi (An exegesis of the Book of rites), pp. 656–60.

79 Mao Zedong, ‘Renmin minzhu zhuanzheng’ (On the people's democratic dictatorship), in Mao Zedong xuanji (Selected works of Mao Zedong) (4 vols., 2nd edn, Beijing, 1991), iv, p. 1469.

80 Beyond the political events that transformed China's status from empire to nation-state from the mid-nineteenth century on, the Chinese quest for modernity has been much discussed by scholars of modern China. See, for instance, Joseph R. Levenson, Confucian China and its modern fate (3 vols., combined edn, Berkeley, CA, 1968); Benjamin I. Schwartz, In search of wealth and power: Yen Fu and the West (Cambridge, MA, 1964); Xiaobing Tang, Global space and the nationalist discourse of modernity: the historical thinking of Liang Qichao (Stanford, CA, 1996); Rebecca E. Karl, Staging the world: Chinese nationalism at the turn of the twentieth century (Durham, NC, 2002).

81 China's name as a nationalistic issue concerned others, as well. Pi, Huang, and Liang are usually identified as ‘reformers’, i.e., advocates of moderate change. During his days as a proponent of anti-Manchu revolution, the classical scholar Liu Shipei also pointed out his country's regrettable lack of a ‘national name’ (guoming) and averred, in deterministic language, that in order for it to achieve ‘self-strengthening’ (ziqiang), ‘there is no other way than to rename it Daxia (the Great Xia)’. See his ‘Rangshu’, p. 2.

82 For a perspective that interprets Mao Zedong's promotion of world revolution in terms of ‘the age-old “Central [Middle] Kingdom” mentality’, see Chen Jian, Mao's China and the Cold War (Chapel Hill, NC, 2001), p. 8. The argument seems to rest more on speculation than on evidence and overlooks the obligatory subscription to the internationalist posture and rhetoric by any worthy proponent of the communist ideology.

83 See Shirley A. Kan, China/Taiwan: evolution of the ‘one China’ policy – key statements from Washington, Beijing, and Taipei (Washington, DC, 2007); also Peter C. Y. Chow, ed., The ‘one China’ dilemma (New York, NY, 2008).

84 See, for example, Zhuang Wanshou, Zhongguo lun (The one China theory) (Taibei, 1996). For an attempt to question Beijing's claim on historical grounds, see Edward L. Dreyer, ‘The myth of “one China’’’, in Chow, ed., ‘One China’ dilemma, pp. 19–36.

85 Henry Kissinger, On China (New York, NY, 2011), p. 3.

86 Michael Elliot, ‘A world map under eastern eyes’, Time, 8 Mar. 2010 www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1968087,00.html. A similar perspective is found in Edward Rothstein, ‘A big map that shrank the world’, New York Times, 20 Jan. 2010, C1, 7.

87 For the electronic images of the map on six panels, see Library of Congress online catalog http://catalog.loc.gov/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?DB=local&Search_Arg=Rare+1602+World+Map&Search_Code=GKEY^*&CNT=100&hist=1&type=quick. The complaint at the Ming court was that Ricci's map actually enlarged the ‘foreign kingdoms’ and made ‘China appear small’. Ricci's own words are quoted in Baddeley, J. F., ‘Father Matteo Ricci's Chinese world-maps, 1584–1608’, Geographical Journal, 4 (1917), pp. 254–70; the quote is on p. 267CrossRefGoogle Scholar.