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Overlapping Histories, Co-produced Concepts: Imperialism in Chinese Eyes

“…Operating outside the People's Republic, Wang is not subject to the growing political sensitivity there surrounding the conceptualization of the history of China's western regions. Nevertheless, he notes that one of his motivations for rejecting New Qing Historians’ labeling of China as an empire is that this is not a new theory, but a continuation of the Japanese imperialist theories of the 1930s that served to justify their presence in China as liberators of Manchus, helping them to establish a separate Japanese puppet state (Wang 2016, 337). Against this background, Wang raises an important challenge.…”

“…He suggests that within this history there was a process of “sinicization” ( hanhua ) in which groups were culturally assimilated into the mainstream, but he does not attribute any unique power to this process. Instead, he likens it to the modern assimilative process of Westernization ( xihua ) (Wang 2016, 328–29).…”

“…Expansion which arises out of a purely defensive motive, whether or not it ought to be declared positive, has far more legitimacy than expansion which arises from an economic motive. (Wang 2016, 333)For Wang, the distinction between European extractive imperialism and Qing state building does not render China exceptional because “no matter whether ancient or modern, in China or outside, to unify almost necessarily requires annexing territory to be realized” (Wang 2016, 334). Wang explicitly rejects taking the contemporary borders of the People's Republic as a given historical telos, and acknowledges that Xinjiang and Tibet's incorporation into China were both violent processes and products of historical contingency (333).…”

“…Expansion which arises out of a purely defensive motive, whether or not it ought to be declared positive, has far more legitimacy than expansion which arises from an economic motive. (Wang 2016, 333)…”

Plastic toy soldiers, a lost battle? – an analytical perspective

“…The accelerated degradation of plastic artefacts in museums also raises concerns about public health and indoor pollution. The acidic by-products produced during cellulose acetate and cellulose nitrate degradation and the emission and migration of toxic additives, are examples to consider [10][11][12][13][14][15][16]. Besides their adverse health effect, the acidic by-products and the emitted additives are potentially hazardous to nearby artefacts, because they act as catalysts in the degradation processes [17][18][19].…”