New articles in this journal are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 United States License. 
 

This journal is published by the University Library System, University of Pittsburgh as part of 

its D-Scribe Digital Publishing Program and is cosponsored by the University of Pittsburgh Press. 

 

  

  JOURNAL OF WORLD-SYSTEMS RESEARCH 
 

 

 

 
Territorial Contradictions of the Rise of China:  
Geopolitics, Nationalism and Hegemony in Comparative-Historical Perspective 
 
 
Sahan Savas Karatasli 

Princeton Institute for International and Regional Studies  

skaratasli@princeton.edu 

 

Sefika Kumral 

Johns Hopkins University  

skumral1@jhu.edu 

Abstract 

There is debate in the literature regarding whether China can become a new world hegemonic power in the 21st 

century. Most existing analyses focus on economic aspects of world hegemony-building processes and ignore its 

macro-political dimensions. This article starts with the premise that reshaping the geopolitical configuration of 

the inter-state system is an important part of world hegemony-building processes. One of the ways in which 

previous and current world hegemonic powers established their world hegemonies was through the inclusion of 

new nations by co-opting, supporting or sometimes selectively leading a section of nationalist movements into 

independence. Our comparative analysis shows that, as of now, contemporary China has not been following this 

historical pattern. Compared to Mao-era China, which was perceived as a champion of national liberation—at 

least when colonial and semi-colonial areas were at stake—today’s People’s Republic of China (PRC) is 

emerging as a champion of the global geo-political status quo. The current Chinese government is not actively 

pursuing the transformation of the inter-state system or seeking to create instabilities at different levels. This is 

because, unlike previous and current world hegemonic powers, during its rise to global preeminence, Chinese 

territorial integrity has been challenged due to rapid escalation of nationalist/secessionist movements within its 

own state boundaries. Hence, the PRC's foreign policy has consistently been concerned with creating and 

preserving macro-political stability at national and international levels.  

Keywords: China, world hegemony, world-systems, nationalism, secessionism 

ISSN: 1076-156X   |   Vol. 23   Issue 1 Pages 5-35   |                                     

    DOI 10.5195/JWSR.2017.591 |   jwsr.org 

 

Vol. 1 |  DOI 10.5195/JWSR.1 

http://www.library.pitt.edu/
http://www.pitt.edu/
http://www.library.pitt.edu/articles/digpubtype/index.html
http://upress.pitt.edu/
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
mailto:skaratasli@princeton.edu


 

Journal of World-System Research   |   Vol. 23   Issue 1  |   Territorial Contradictions of the Rise of China 

 

jwsr.org   |   DOI 10.5195/JWSR.2017.591 

6 

There is a major debate in the literature regarding whether China can become a new world 

hegemonic power in the 21st century.1 In this paper we provide a critical assessment of China's 

possible rise to global political-economic preeminence with a focus on macro-political dimensions 

of world hegemony building processes. Although there is a flourishing literature, which discusses 

limits and prospects of China's possible ascendancy (Ciccantell and Bunker 2004; Arrighi 2007; 

Jacques 2009; Lachmann 2010:202-206; Gulick 2011; Hung 2015), most existing analyses focus 

on economic aspects alone and ignore macro-political dimensions of world hegemony building 

processes.  

Our analysis stems from two premises: (1) Until now, efforts to reshape the geopolitical 

configuration of the inter-state system have been an important part of world hegemony-building 

processes. (2) One of the ways in which previous and current hegemonic powers—the United 

Provinces, the United Kingdom and the United States—transformed the geopolitical configuration 

of the inter-state system was through the inclusion of new nations by supporting, co-opting, and 

sometimes leading selected nationalist movements into independence. We argue that by leading a 

select group of subject nations to independence, rising great powers enhanced their hegemony-

building capacities by (1) gaining the “intellectual and moral leadership” (Gramsci [1971] 2003) 

of these new states, (2) weakening their rival great powers (e.g., formal empires or 

colonial/imperial powers) that previously controlled these subject nations, (3) containing rival and 

radical anti-systemic ideologies (e.g. republicanism in the late 18th and early 19th century; 

communism in the late 19th and the 20th century) which were spreading among these oppressed 

nations, (4) presenting their own political systems and state-society relationships as ideal-type 

political models that can be exported to these “new” nations, and (5) representing themselves as 

the pioneers of a new and a more “progressive” world order who helped dissolve the earlier 

“despotic” and “reactionary” inter-state systems. 

So far, however, contemporary China does not seem to be following this historical trend. 

Although China during the Mao era was perceived as a champion of national liberation (Van Ness 

1970: 77-94)—at least when colonial and semi-colonial areas were at stake—today’s People’s 

Republic of China (PRC) is emerging as a champion for the preservation of the global geo-political 

status quo. Put differently, in contrast to previous and current world hegemonic powers, the 

contemporary Chinese government is not interested in transforming the geopolitical configuration 

of the inter-state system and creating instabilities at different levels. The PRC's foreign policy has 

consistently been concerned with preserving the inter-state system created by the declining world 

                                                                                                                                                             
1 Authors would like to thank Benedict Anderson, Gene Anderson, Joel Andreas, Robert Barnett, Gardner Bovingdon, 

Christopher Chase-Dunn, Melvyn Goldstein, Ho-fung Hung, Stephen Sanderson, Beverly Silver and anonymous 

reviewers of JWSR for their valuable comments and feedback. 

 



 

Journal of World-System Research   |   Vol. 23   Issue 1  

 

jwsr.org   |   DOI 10.5195/JWSR.2017.591 

7 

hegemonic power. Even if China maintains its economic strength and gains the economic 

leadership of the world in the 21st century by providing a temporary solution to the contemporary 

crisis of capitalist world-economy, it will not lead a new inter-state system. Instead, it will lead the 

existing inter-state system established by the United States. 

In the current literature, it is possible to find arguments explaining China’s policy of 

preserving stability in terms of unique ideological and historically specific aspects of Chinese 

culture. In this paper, however, we offer another explanation that arises from our comparative-

historical analysis. Our explanation focuses on a particular political problem surrounding China 

during its ascendancy that had not existed, at least on this scale, for previous rising hegemonic 

powers. We maintain that during its economic ascendancy, Chinese territorial integrity was 

challenged through a rapid escalation of nationalist/secessionist movements (such as the long 

standing Taiwanese problem, the Tibet movement, the East Turkestan/Uyghur movement in the 

Xinjiang region, and to a lesser extent the Inner Mongolia problem and growing dissent in newly 

integrated Hong Kong). While none of these problems are new, a complex set of factors that are 

also related to the rise of China—including multifaceted domestic transformations during the 

reform period (e.g., liberalization and “opening up” policies; and its growing energy needs) and 

complex international transformations of the U.S.-centered world hegemonic order (e.g. decline 

of U.S. hegemony, intensification of inter-state rivalries, and growing social and political 

instability in the world)—made China more and more vulnerable to these internal threats and 

challenges.  

We argue that escalation of nationalist/secessionist movements during China’s ascendancy 

have been pushing the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to utilize a two-dimensional strategy that 

is closely related to China’s growing political-economic strength. The first dimension is the heavy 

reliance on development and welfare policies to contain nationalist problems at home and abroad. 

The second dimension, made possible by China’s growing bargaining power in bilateral and 

multilateral relations, is the skillful use of international diplomacy against forces of secessionist 

nationalism. Both dimensions of this strategy require and favor global stability. Consequently, 

contrary to previous hegemonic powers, China has emerged as a global power, which does not 

attempt to alter the geopolitical configuration of the inter-state system but one, which attempts to 

preserve the status quo.  

In pursuit of discussing various implications of this “anomalous” development in a 

comparative-historical perspective, this paper is organized as follows. The first section explains 

the comparative-historical rationale behind our premises by discussing trajectories of the United 

Provinces, the United Kingdom and the United States with a focus on the macro-political aspects 

of world hegemony building processes. The second section examines the historical trajectory of 

nationalist movements in China before and after the reform period to describe the historically-



 

Journal of World-System Research   |   Vol. 23   Issue 1  |   Territorial Contradictions of the Rise of China 

 

jwsr.org   |   DOI 10.5195/JWSR.2017.591 

8 

specific context the PRC finds itself in the early 21st century. The third section discusses the two-

dimensional strategy the PRC utilized to contain nationalism in the reform period and explains 

how and why China has emerged as a champion of the global status quo. The fourth section 

concludes by comparing the trajectory we observe in China today with the trajectories of the 

previous rising hegemonic powers in world history. 

 

Macro-Political Aspects of World Hegemony Building Processes 

The concept of “world hegemony” refers to “the power of a state to exercise functions of leadership 

and governance over a system of sovereign states” (Arrighi 1994: 27). In this Gramscian re-

conceptualization, power is associated not only with dominance but also with the exercise of 

intellectual and moral leadership. At the world-systemic level, as Arrighi explains, a particular 

state exercises this hegemonic function when it leads a system of states in pursuit of a perceived 

general interest. Although terms like general interest are extremely ambiguous because of their 

ideological nature, historically, claims of this kind tend to increase their credibility under 

conditions of “systemic chaos,” where rising hegemonic powers, and their rivals, contend to be 

the leaders in resolving a multiplicity of crises whose devastating economic, social and political 

consequences are faced by many actors in the inter-state system (Arrighi and Silver 1999).  

Among these crises, we can count catastrophic economic and social upheavals which signal that 

existing regimes of capitalist accumulation are no longer sustainable, escalation of inter-great 

power (and inter-imperialist) warfare which quickly turns into a negative-sum game for all of its 

participants and intensification of massive social conflicts, revolts and revolutions (Arrighi & 

Silver 1999; Silver & Slater 1999; Boswell & Chase-Dunn 2000; Amin et al 1982; Arrighi et al 

1989). In this chaotic atmosphere, rising hegemonic powers attempt to resolve these crises by 

offering new configurations for historical capitalism, state-society relationships and inter-state 

systems (Arrighi 1994; Arrighi & Silver 1999; Silver & Slater 1999). These reconfigurations and 

transformations help rising hegemonic powers not only climb the ladders of global political and 

economic preeminence but also assert and advance their “intellectual and moral leadership” 

capacities.  

One of the important—yet relatively much less studied—aspects of these transformations is 

related to the integration of new nations into the inter-state system. Historically, the rise of social 

and political movements demanding independent statehood, recognition and integration into the 

inter-state system have been an integral part of the systemic chaos which had marked each 

hegemonic transition period (Karataşlı 2013; Silver & Slater 1999). Using the opportunity 

structures created by economic, social and political crisis conditions of the hegemonic transition 

periods, state-seeking movements challenge their rulers in a much stronger way (Karataşlı 2013). 

Historically, climbing the ladders of global-economic preeminence, rising hegemonic powers have 



 

Journal of World-System Research   |   Vol. 23   Issue 1  

 

jwsr.org   |   DOI 10.5195/JWSR.2017.591 

9 

led a particular section of these movements to independence by supporting them either directly or 

indirectly. This helped these great powers increase their consent-making capacities, gain the 

leadership of a new system of states and constitute themselves as hegemonic powers.  

 

The Rise of the United Provinces to World Hegemony 

For instance, the rise of the United Provinces to global political-economic preeminence—which 

occurred between the mid-16th and the mid-17th centuries (Arrighi 1994)—coincided with the 

emergence of various state-seeking movements within Europe and the partial dissolution of the 

Spanish-Habsburg Empire (Elliott 1970; Elliott 1997; Elliott 2002; Kamen 2005; Karataşlı 2013). 

The seventeen provinces of the Low Countries—which later became the Dutch Republic—were 

the pioneers of these state-seeking movements when they started a revolt against the Spanish-

Habsburg Empire which is currently known as the Dutch War of Independence. The eighty-year 

long struggle of the Dutch against the Spanish-Habsburg Empire and the establishment of the 

United Provinces as a de facto independent state in the course of this struggle became an admired 

model for various regions of the Spanish-Habsburg Empire (Silver & Slater 1999; Elliott 1970). 

By 1640 different forms of social revolts aiming at establishing independent political units took 

place in Catalonia, newly incorporated Portugal, Andalusia, Sicily and Naples, and Eastern Europe 

(Elliott 1970; Boswell & Chase-Dunn 2000; Tilly 1994). Within the social and political turmoil of 

the late 16th and early 17th centuries, many Protestant revolts also turned into state-seeking 

movements (Karataşlı 2013).  

In the late 16th and early 17th centuries, the Dutch provinces contributed to the existing 

systemic instabilities by actively leading the revolts against the Spanish-Habsburg Empire, riding 

the tiger of Calvinism, and financing the Protestant popular revolts all over Europe (Parker & 

Smith 1978: 18; Parker 1978: 65; Lachmann 2000: 161-162; Arrighi 1994: 47). The Dutch 

statesmen quickly realized that in order to gain their independence and to advance their political-

economic power they needed to polarize international politics by leading a large coalition of 

dynastic states against the Spanish-Habsburg empire and towards the liquidation of the medieval 

system of rule (Parker 1978; Arrighi 1994: 43). Furthermore, in the course of their struggle for 

independence, the Dutch made their best effort to sap Iberian power in Asia. For example, after 

the establishment of the V.O.C. (Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie) in 1602, the Dutch made 

agreements with Spanish/Portuguese occupation forces (i.e. King of Kandy, Coromandel coast of 

India, Indonesia, etc.) in order to expel the Iberian forces from Asia (Parker 1978: 71). The Peace 

of Westphalia of 1648, which marked the end of both the Eighty Years' War and the Thirty Years' 

War, not only created the inter-state system of the modern world but also forced the defeated great 

powers to recognize new states—such as the United Provinces and Switzerland—as independent 

units of this system. 



 

Journal of World-System Research   |   Vol. 23   Issue 1  |   Territorial Contradictions of the Rise of China 

 

jwsr.org   |   DOI 10.5195/JWSR.2017.591 

10 

This strategy helped the United Provinces in a number of ways. For one thing, it contributed 

to the partial dissolution of the Spanish-Habsburg Empire and weakened the Holy Roman Empire, 

which were among the primary rival great powers for the United Provinces. While weakening its 

rivals, the same process had integrative effects on the Seventeen Provinces. Previously the 

“Seventeen Provinces” were nothing more than a loosely coordinated, heterogeneous collection of 

autonomous city-states. Thanks to its long struggle against the Habsburgs and the extremely high 

level of capital it started to accumulate, “the United Provinces” became a hybrid kind of 

organization. It incorporated characteristics of both a collection of city-states (which it was much 

more than) and that of a centralized nation state (which it was still less than) (Arrighi 1994: 36-

47). Moreover, in the course of its struggle against the Spanish-Habsburg Empire, the United 

Provinces advanced its leadership capacities over a large number of states—especially the 

Protestant ones—in Europe. Bringing together new sovereign states of Europe under the 

Westphalian system and dissolving medieval system of rule in Europe helped the United Provinces 

to become the hegemonic power in the 17th century. 

 

The Rise of the United Kingdom to World Hegemony 

The transition from Dutch to British hegemony, which took place between the late 18th and early 

19th centuries, coincided with the development of another wave of state-seeking movements in 

the modern world-system. This time, state-seeking movements were concentrated especially in the 

settler colonies of the Americas (Karataşlı 2013:228-241). Thirteen colonies in North America 

revolted against the British Empire and gained their independence in 1776. The American War of 

Independence was a major event signaling the upcoming crises in the geopolitical and 

macroeconomic sphere (Silver and Slater 1999:159-160). From 1780 onwards, creole settlers and 

native Indians in Central and South America also started to revolt against their Spanish and 

Portugese imperial rulers. With the slave revolt of 1791 led by Toussaint L'Ouverture, the black 

population in Saint-Domingue started a struggle against the French Empire, and in 1804 they 

successfully established a state of their own. Furthermore, during this hegemonic consolidation 

period, utilizing the opportunities created by the Napoleonic wars, all settler colonies in the 

Americas accelerated their fight against the Spanish Empire, gained their independence and 

established contemporary states such as Chile, Argentina, Paraguay, Peru, Mexico, Colombia and 

Venezuela. As a whole, the period from the 1770s to the 1820s marked the first major wave of 

decolonization in modern world history (see Figure 1, below). In that era, the rise of nationalist 

movements was not confined to settler colonies. In the late 18th and early 19th century, the 

Serbian, Greek and Romanian populations of the Ottoman Empire and the Irish in the British 

Empire also started their wars of national liberation. 



 

Journal of World-System Research   |   Vol. 23   Issue 1  

 

jwsr.org   |   DOI 10.5195/JWSR.2017.591 

11 

Figure 1. Major Waves of Decolonization 

 

Source: Data from Henige (1970). See Bergesen and Schoenberg (1980) for the original study on long waves of 

colonialism and decolonization using Henige’s (1970) data. Five year aggregates for successful decolonization 

activities are shown. Post-1970 instances of decolonization are updated at 

http://www.irows.ucr.edu/cd/appendices/socchange/data/colanddecol.xls, last retrieved August 31, 2015 

 

Compared to the United Provinces, which had to gain its independence and move toward further 

integration during the crisis of the late 16th and early 17th century, the British Empire was more 

concerned with protecting its territorial/imperial integrity against forces of nationalism in the midst 

of the crisis of the late 18th century. It was more hesitant than its counterpart to support national 

liberation movements that could trigger instability in the world, a tactic that could have backfired, 

and harmed the Empire. In its rise to world hegemony, the British Empire had already lost an 

important part of its American colonies and was struggling to suppress the revolt by the United 

Irishmen. Hence, in Europe, the British statesmen quickly realized the benefits of a conservative 

coalition with the Holy Alliance in suppressing the nationalist, patriotic revolts that started to 

accelerate after the French Revolution.  

Still, in its rise to global-economic preeminence, this new hegemonic power played a 

significant role in leading a section of nationalist movements to independence. Many British naval 

and military officers, sailors and soldiers took part in the independence movements of the settler 

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

1
7

0
0

1
7

1
0

1
7

2
0

1
7

3
0

1
7

4
0

1
7

5
0

1
7

6
0

1
7

7
0

1
7

8
0

1
7

9
0

1
8

0
0

1
8

1
0

1
8

2
0

1
8

3
0

1
8

4
0

1
8

5
0

1
8

6
0

1
8

7
0

1
8

8
0

1
8

9
0

1
9

0
0

1
9

1
0

1
9

2
0

1
9

3
0

1
9

4
0

1
9

5
0

1
9

6
0

1
9

7
0

1
9

8
0

1
9

9
0

2
0

0
0

First Major 

Wave of 

Decolonization  

Second Major 

Wave of 

Decolonization  

http://www.irows.ucr.edu/cd/appendices/socchange/data/colanddecol.xls


 

Journal of World-System Research   |   Vol. 23   Issue 1  |   Territorial Contradictions of the Rise of China 

 

jwsr.org   |   DOI 10.5195/JWSR.2017.591 

12 

colonies in Latin America.2 The Austrian and Russian monarchies were extremely concerned about 

these state-seeking movements in the Americas and wanted to restore monarchical order in Spain 

by quelling these rebellions. But their plans for “intervention and restoration in Spanish America 

[were] effectively barred by Great Britain— and the United States” (Hayes 1959:631). As Arrighi 

put it “what later became the Monroe doctrine—the idea that Europe should not intervene in 

American affairs—was initially a British policy” (Arrighi 2007: 242). The British government was 

the first to recognize these new nations as independent political units, in spite of the opposition 

they received from Spain, Russia and Austria. In doing so, they not only weakened these powers 

(especially the Spanish) but also established strong commercial relationships with the new 

American nations, which were hitherto under the monopoly of Castile. All these nations, in 

exchange, welcomed British leadership and acted in accordance with British commercial interests. 

Incorporation of these new nations into its sphere of influence was an important step for the 

establishment of British hegemony.  

Likewise, despite the reactionary and conservative coalition it established with the Holy 

Alliance in Europe to protect the integrity of its empire and to smash existing nationalist 

movements (Polanyi [1944] 2001: 7), the British Empire also strategically supported liberal 

national independence movements such as the Greek uprising of 1821 and Belgian Revolution of 

1830 during its hegemony. This policy helped British statesmen in three respects. First this strategy 

contributed to “the slow eating away of the Holy Alliance by embarrassing it where its principles 

were most shaky” (Wallerstein 2011: 55). Furthermore, this policy helped British statesmen to 

advance their indirect rule over these new nations of Europe. After all, the majority of monarchs 

of these new nations of the nineteenth century were chosen, suggested, or directly appointed by 

the British government itself (Anderson 2012).3 Finally, by exporting its own political regime—

constitutional monarchy—to these newly independent nations of Europe, the British statesmen 

also countered the “disruptive” effects of the revolutionary threat posed by the French Revolution. 

                                                                                                                                                             
2 British policy regarding the independence of colonies was extremely pragmatic. The British government was by no 

means a defender of colonial independence. On the contrary, during the Napoleonic Wars, the British did not set Cape 

Colony or Ceylon free. They took these colonies from the Dutch Empire and made them their own possessions 

(Rapport 2005:100). When the Boers—former Dutch settlers—established the Republic of Natalia in 1839 in South 

Africa, as another example, the British did not hesitate to annex them either. Thus if the British supported 

independence movements of the South American colonies, it was because they were liquidating massive colonial 

possessions of the Iberian powers. It is not surprising that “by the end of the first quarter of the nineteenth century, it 

appeared as if European overseas imperialism was waning rather than waxing, with only the British overseas empire 

actually experiencing any growth” (Rapport 2005:101).  
3 In 1815, for instance, British statesmen installed William I to the newly established Dutch throne. After the Greek 

War of independence in 1833, the Convention of London chose a Bavarian prince -Prince Otto—as a monarch. When 

Belgium revolted against the Kingdom of Holland and gained its independence in 1830, Leopold I was chosen as the 

monarch. This new king of Belgium, who was initially married to the heiress of the British throne and later married 

to Louis Phillip's daughter in law, was a key figure in further intensifying the British-Belgium relationship in the 

1830s. 



 

Journal of World-System Research   |   Vol. 23   Issue 1  

 

jwsr.org   |   DOI 10.5195/JWSR.2017.591 

13 

Hence this was a strategy of “co-optation.” These examples may suffice to show some of the 

relationships surrounding the “liberation” of nations and the strengthening of British hegemonic 

power in the early 19th century.  

 

The Rise of the United States to World Hegemony 

A similar process took place during the rise of the United States to world hegemony as well. The 

period from 1870 to 1918/45—the transition period from British to US hegemony—marked the 

height of state-seeking nationalist movements in world history (Karataşlı 2013:293-304; 

Hobsbawm 1992: 101-130). In this hegemonic transition period, forces of nationalism proved to 

be an extremely strong force that neither communists nor liberals were able to ignore. Suddenly, 

in the first half of the 20th century, the United States became the champion of national liberation 

and decolonization (Karataşlı 2013:312-342). In its rise to world hegemony, the United States 

became actively involved in the restructuring of the world political-economic space.  

Pragmatic involvement with the liberation of subject nations helped the United States advance 

its leadership capacities in a number of different ways. First of all, it was a strategy to contain the 

danger of communism. Within the systemic chaos of the early 20th century, the Bolsheviks 

incorporated the idea of national-liberation into their revolutionary strategy, which became one of 

the most important factors in the success of the communist revolution in Russia. The Bolsheviks 

saw the liberation of all subject nations and oppressed colonial peoples as an important asset for 

world revolution as well (Hobsbawm 1992: 148). The right of nations to self-determination was a 

main theme of the East People's Congress in Baku (1920) and this soon became a principle of “the 

(Third) International” (Blunden 1977 [2013]).  

Containment of the Bolshevik threat was an integral part of the United States' attempt to 

support national liberation movements in Europe. Wilson's principle of self-determination was a 

card that the Allies played against the Bolsheviks (Hobsbawm 1992:131). Wilson promised to give 

oppressed nationalities—currently living under the Ottoman, Austria-Hungarian and Russian 

empires—independence and security. And it was this principle that dominated the peace 

negotiations after World War I. After these treaties, the number of states in Europe rose to twenty-

seven, and the number of states in the world rose to sixty-five. Between 1914 and 1945, thirty-

three new states joined the modern inter-state system. Furthermore, in the course of the Second 

World War, “the United States was able to pose itself as the natural ally of the emergent 

nationalism in the colonial empires, and as the guarantor of the promises of self-determination and 

national independence through which the colonial peoples were mobilized against the Axis 

powers” (Arrighi 1978:94). 

The United States' support for national liberation movements after the First World War helped 

liquidate remaining formal territorial empires such as Ottoman Empire and Austrian-Hungarian 



 

Journal of World-System Research   |   Vol. 23   Issue 1  |   Territorial Contradictions of the Rise of China 

 

jwsr.org   |   DOI 10.5195/JWSR.2017.591 

14 

Empire. Likewise, its support for decolonization movements after 1945 helped liquidate colonial 

possessions of the British Empire and French Empire. In addition to liquidating territorial/colonial 

possessions of formal and colonial empires, through this strategy, like previous hegemonic powers 

before them, the United States was able to present its political system as a model for the new world. 

“Immediately after the war, the model of the 'Revolution of 1776' was not merely American 

propaganda for use in the colonial world, but also a spontaneous source of inspiration for the 

colonial peoples themselves. The Democratic Republic of Vietnam, for instance, modeled its 1946 

Declaration of Independence on the American document of 1776. In reality, U.S. support, or at 

least neutrality, in the struggles of the national liberation movements did accelerate the tendency 

toward decolonization in certain areas of particular economic and strategic importance (the 

Middle-East, India, Indonesia)” (Arrighi 1978: 94). 

The United States’ decolonization policy was also related to containing the forces of 

communism. During the U.S. world hegemony, both the USSR and the United States competed 

with each other in order to penetrate their sphere of influence into the colonial world and apply 

their notion of self-determination to the colonial nations. Gradually, “national liberation” turned 

into a synonym for anti-colonialism. From 1945 onwards, the world saw the second wave of 

decolonization in modern world history (see Figure 1). Because the United States was not a major 

colonial power itself, it did not have much to lose in defending the decolonization of former 

imperial powers. On the contrary, this was an integral part of U.S. hegemonic consolidation. In 

addition, through admitting the newly independent nations into the freshly established "United 

Nations," and promising them economic growth and development, the United States not only 

increased its intellectual and moral leadership within the non-Western world, but also created a 

favorable environment for capitalist development. The period from 1945 to 1970 became a period 

of material expansion, whose two main pillars were decolonization and the development project 

(Silver & Slater 1999: 209; McMichael 2012; Harvey 2003:58). 

 

Trajectory of State-Seeking Nationalist Movements In China  

During The Long Twentieth Century 

Unlike the rise of the United Provinces, the United Kingdom and the United States, however, 

China’s ascendancy does not coincide with attempts to restructure the existing configuration of the 

inter-state system. On the contrary, as of now China has been preoccupied with providing stability 

and preserving the global status quo. Of course, this trend is not yet complete and, thus, there is 

no guarantee that China’s policies will not change in the near future.4 Although large 

                                                                                                                                                             
4 A number of U.S. policy makers, including Robert Kaplan (2005), believe that rise of China cannot be and will not 

be a peaceful one. Likewise, in the Chinese Communist Party too “there are people who feel that speaking of a peaceful 

 



 

Journal of World-System Research   |   Vol. 23   Issue 1  

 

jwsr.org   |   DOI 10.5195/JWSR.2017.591 

15 

generalizations and deductions out of a yet-unfolding process would not be wise, there are also 

reasons to believe that a combination of structural macro-political dynamics have been pushing 

China to preserve the status quo in the world. These dynamics are complex and multifaceted. 

Within the limits of this paper and following the framework we introduce below, we will mainly 

focus on one of these aspects:  increasing vulnerability of Chinese territorial unity due to the rise 

of state-seeking nationalist movements—within China and around the world—during the reform 

era.  

 The nature of this vulnerability cannot be properly conceived without understanding the 

nature of the “unfinished businesses” of national problems in China (Kumral 2013). As discussed 

above, transition from British to U.S. hegemony witnessed an upsurge of state-seeking nationalist 

movements, which liquidated almost all large continental empires. The Qing Dynasty was not 

immune to this global upheaval. It witnessed two revolutions and a civil war. In this process, 

various state-seeking movements managed to secede from China and establish new political units. 

After the Revolution of 1911 and the fall of the Manchu Qing Dynasty, the Dalai Lama declared 

Tibet (Schai 2011:189-191) and Bogd Khaan declared Mongolia independent from China.5 

Xinjiang was also dismembered in 1911 (Gladney 2003:4). Furthermore, in the tumultuous period 

from 1911 to 1949, two independent East Turkestan Republics were established in the region: An 

Islamic Republic centered in the city of Kashgar in 1933 and a Soviet-backed Turkic People's 

Republic in 1944. After the invasion of Manchuria, the Japanese declared inner Manchuria an 

independent state and established “Manchukuo” as a puppet state. 

Yet while the Imperial system was shattered in this period (Skocpol 1979:80), the territorial 

unity of China was re-established to a great extent by the 1950s. The Kuomingtang (KMT) started 

the process of re-expansion; later, control over minority regions which had enjoyed full or partial 

independence (Mongolia, Xinjiang and Tibet) was re-gained by the Chinese Communist Party 

(CCP) in 1947, 1949 and in 1950, respectively. The trend of territorial contraction was reversed 

and territorial re-unification was by and large completed with the 1949 revolution (see Figure 2). 

In short, China entered the period of U.S. hegemony as a unitary (yet multinational) republic.6 

The contradictions of governing a multi-national republic while introducing socialist 

transformation reforms continuously unfolded throughout the CCP’s rule. The contradictions 

manifested themselves as sporadic eruptions of nationalist unrest in minority regions and 

successive policy changes by the CCP to contain these forces of separatist nationalism (Kumral 

                                                                                                                                                             
rise gives the message to the United States and Taiwan that they can impudently push China around” (Arrighi 

2007:292).  
5 Tibet became a de facto independent state from 1913 to 1951 but its sovereignty was never internationally recognized 

(Nathan & Scobell 2012:199). 
6 This was unlike the USSR (United Soviet Socialist Republics), which was a federal republic that (at least theoretically 

and ideologically) depended upon the “voluntary” union of “independent soviet republics.” 



 

Journal of World-System Research   |   Vol. 23   Issue 1  |   Territorial Contradictions of the Rise of China 

 

jwsr.org   |   DOI 10.5195/JWSR.2017.591 

16 

2013). Right after the establishment of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, the principle of 

the right of nations to self-determination—which had been defended by the CCP against the KMT 

in its revolutionary struggle in the course of the 1940s—was abandoned in favor of a system of 

Regional Autonomy of Minority Nationality Regions in a Unified China (Connor 1984; also see 

Xingwu 1988:136-7; Bockman 1992:186-7). 

 

Figure 2. Territorial Expansion, Contraction and Re-expansion of China, 1750-1950, thousand km2 

Source: Taagepera (1997: 492-553). 

In this period the CCP offered a wide range of socio-economic, political and administrative 

privileges to the autonomous regions. It was careful not to impose a one-size-fits-all system which 

ignored regional differences and “sensitivities” in the implementation of the socialist 

transformation (Moseley and Chang 1966). However, partially because of the disputes regarding 

the exact boundaries of the autonomous areas7 and partially because of the CCP's desire to start 

implementing socialist reforms in these areas, in the course of the 1950s, revolts by resident 

minority groups erupted sporadically.  

                                                                                                                                                             
7 For Tibetans, as an example, Tibetan boundaries are not confined to Tibet Autonomous Area (TAR) but it 

encompasses the entire Tibetan-populated area Cholka-Sum, which includes Qinghai, Gansu, Sichuan and Yunnan 

provinces as well (Nathan and Scobell 2012:198-199; Lafitte 2013).  

0.000

2.000

4.000

6.000

8.000

10.000

12.000

14.000

16.000



 

Journal of World-System Research   |   Vol. 23   Issue 1  

 

jwsr.org   |   DOI 10.5195/JWSR.2017.591 

17 

 

 

Figure 3.  Patterning of Nationalist Movements in China, 1900-20138 

 

 

The radical transformations of the Great Leap Forward era brought existing grievances among the 

minorities to a very high point, and a series of major rebellions occurred in Xinjiang and Tibet 

starting from 1958. The strongest and the most well-known among them was the Tibetan uprising 

in Lhasa on March 1959, when Tibetans not only rebelled but also went on to establish a 

provisional government9 (see Figure 3). 

                                                                                                                                                             
8 Note: ‘Years with Peripheral Nationalist Warfare in China’ is from Wimmer and Min (2006). Years in which there 

was a nationalist secessionist warfare in China is shown with light grey shades. ‘Frequency of Major Nationalist 

Movements’ is from State-Seeking Nationalist Movements (SSNM) database by Karataşlı (2013). Karataşlı (2013) 

uses the Guardian and the New York Times newspaper archives to estimate the peaks and troughs nationalist 

mobilization. Hence, while interpreting the frequency of major nationalist movements indicator, the attention must be 

paid to relative peaks and troughs rather than their absolute levels. Three year moving average is used in the frequency 

of major nationalist movements. The information provided for the waves are examples of important events that take 

place during these periods. Taiwan is not included in the figure. 
9  In 1959, more than 30,000 Tibetans—including the members of the Tibetan army, Lhasa’s monks, and members of 

the general public—took the streets upon a rumor that the Dalai Lama would be kidnapped during a secret meeting 

that he would hold with the Chinese authorities (Norbu 1979). The uprising was suppressed after 13 days and the 

 

0

5

10

15

20

25

1
9

0
0

1
9

0
4

1
9

0
8

1
9

1
2

1
9

1
6

1
9

2
0

1
9

2
4

1
9

2
8

1
9

3
2

1
9

3
6

1
9

4
0

1
9

4
4

1
9

4
8

1
9

5
2

1
9

5
6

1
9

6
0

1
9

6
4

1
9

6
8

1
9

7
2

1
9

7
6

1
9

8
0

1
9

8
4

1
9

8
8

1
9

9
2

1
9

9
6

2
0

0
0

2
0

0
4

2
0

0
8

2
0

1
2

Years with Peripheral Nationalist Warfare in China Frequency of Major Nationalist Movements (3 year m.a.)

1
9

1
1

 R
E

V
O

LU
T

IO
N

1
9

4
9

 R
E

V
O

LU
T

IO
N CULTURAL

REV.

REFORM PERIOD

2008 Tibetan protests;
2009 Urumqi riots;

Tibetan self-immolations

1987-89 Tibetan 
and 1989 Uyghur 
uprisings

1958-59 Lhasa 
Uprising; 1958 
Uyghur rebellion

Dissolution of 
the Qing dynasty, 
independence of 
Mongolia and Tibet

Declaration of the 
Islamic Republic in 
East Turkestan; 
nationalist resistance in 
Xinjiang, Tibet 
and Inner Mongolia

Declaration of the 
East Turkestan
Republic in 1944 with 
the "Three District
Revolution" in Xinjiang.

1956-1959—
Rebellion in 

Eastern Tibet 
(Mainly in 
Kham and 

Amdo)



 

Journal of World-System Research   |   Vol. 23   Issue 1  |   Territorial Contradictions of the Rise of China 

 

jwsr.org   |   DOI 10.5195/JWSR.2017.591 

18 

This rising tide of nationalist unrest was countered with the launch of the Cultural Revolution 

(Bockman 1992:190). In Tibet, the Lama monasteries—which also served as the organizational 

centers for the national movements—were destroyed and religious activities were proscribed 

(Donnet 1994; Nathan & Scobell 2012:200). Likewise, in Xinjiang, thousands of mosques, shrines 

and Koranic schools were closed, public prayer was banned, and religious and cultural leaders 

were removed from their positions (Minahan 2002:1962).  

 

Nationalist Unrest in China During the Reform Era 

Launch of the Cultural Revolution heralded a period of decline in nationalist movements in 

China’s minority regions but it did not end nationalist aspirations in these contentious regions for 

good. On the contrary, while impeding nationalist-secessionist movements, the Cultural 

Revolution also had a long-term impact of creating memories of repression, which has been 

important in the organization of the post-1980 wave of nationalist movements in China.  

For this reason, when the Chinese government abandoned the policies of the Cultural 

Revolution and launched reforms in 1978, two opposite developments took place. On the one hand, 

China started to move rapidly as a global-economic power, and on the other hand, nationalist 

movements in minority regions started to strike back. Tibetan uprisings between 1987 and 1989 

and re-escalation of the Uyghur secessionist movements after the collapse of the USSR in 1989 

(Bovingdon 2004) marked the first revival of secessionist movements in China. In the course of 

the 1990s, these protests continued in both Tibet and the Xinjiang region, using different strategies 

for gaining independence. These events, however, were merely predecessors of an upcoming riot 

that coincided with the 2008 Olympics Games (Barnett 2009). In March 2008, annual pro-Tibet 

demonstrations turned into a series of riots where thousands of Chinese (Han) shops and offices 

were burned, and hundreds of vehicles were set on fire. The scale of the March 2008 anti-Chinese 

demonstrations and riots was the highest since the 1989 protests (Smith 2010:2). Since then, 

Tibetan protests have started to take the form of self-immolations. From March of 2009, more than 

hundred and fifty Tibetans have set themselves on fire to protest Chinese rule. The self-

immolations continue in Tibet today. Between 2008 and 2009, Uyghur's state-seeking activities 

took the form of ethnic riots and state-seeking nationalist unrest is still highly active in the region. 

Rising state-seeking nationalist movements in China today are not simply confined to the 

Tibetan and Xinjiang regions either. Arguably, Beijing's greatest problem today is Taiwan. In 

contrast to other national problems, “Taiwan is more than just a problem of territorial integrity: it 

is the site of a rival Chinese government” (Nathan & Scobell 2012:212). While existing tensions 

                                                                                                                                                             
Dalai Lama had to flee to India. After the suppression of the revolt, local government was dissolved and martial law 

was declared in Tibet. 



 

Journal of World-System Research   |   Vol. 23   Issue 1  

 

jwsr.org   |   DOI 10.5195/JWSR.2017.591 

19 

between China and Taiwan have temporarily been contained under the Chinese Nationalist Party’s 

(KMT) administration of President Ma Ying-jeou since 2008, these problems have not been 

permanently solved (Cabestan 2011:484). Given the January 2016 victory of Taiwan's Democratic 

Progressive Party (DPP)—which has a strong stand for de jure Taiwanese Independence from 

Mainland China—we might see a return to hostilities of the former era. Furthermore, China is also 

extremely unhappy about the U.S.-Taiwan relationship, including arms sales to Taiwan by the 

United States.10 

In addition, there is “Inner Mongolia,” which is a relatively less problematic region compared 

to Tibet, Xinjiang, and Taiwan. State-seeking separatist movements in Inner Mongolia declined 

dramatically since the early 20th century. This is mostly related to the massive resettlement policy 

China pursued over the last 200 years. Today the ratio of the Han population to ethnic Mongolians 

in Inner Mongolia is around 6:1 (Kristof 1992). However, this does not ensure that the Inner 

Mongolian problem has been resolved for good. There are still political and military organizations 

in the region that struggle for independence, and Chinese authorities are doing their best to stop 

these organizations from mobilizing the society. Similar to the mobilizations in the Xinjiang 

region, the rise of nationalist movements in the USSR in the early 1990s also triggered the Inner 

Mongolian pro-independence organizations, upon which Chinese authorities immediately cracked 

down (WuDunn 1991; Husmann 1994:149-150). Various sorts of protests and ethnic problems 

continue in the region.  

 Finally, the recently incorporated Hong Kong is emerging as another source of unrest for 

China. Initially the PRC did not think that the return of Hong Kong to China would be a source of 

tension. Beijing “expected the Hong Kong people to be as pragmatic and apolitical as they had 

always been” (Nathan & Scobell 2012:210). But the 1989 Tiananmen protests sparked the 

development of a bourgeois-democratic movement in Hong Kong, which was supported, for the 

first time, by the British government. Hence, Beijing started to see the transfer of Hong Kong to 

China as a Trojan horse nicely packaged by the British government. Although the Chinese “one 

country, two system” approach tied Hong Kong to the mainland with relatively few problems 

initially, grievances against the Beijing government since 1997 have been rapidly increasing. After 

2014-2015 Hong Kong electoral reform, a new independence movement has emerged in Hong 

                                                                                                                                                             
10 Not without reason, China is worried about closer U.S-Taiwan relationships that could emerge under Donald 

Trump’s administration. During his presidential campaign, Donald Trump promised that he was going to take a 

tougher stand against China, and signaled that he was going to support Taiwan to gain leverage against China.  In 

December 2016, Trump’s surprising phone call with Taiwan’s president Tsai became a matter of controversy. While 

Beijing managed to convince Trump to back down on his promise to review Taiwan’s status, tensions have not been 

solved for good. After all, Trump’s support for arms sales to Taiwan is not new. As early as 2011, Trump criticized 

the Obama administration in his tweet: "Why is @BarackObama delaying the sale of F-16 aircraft to Taiwan? Wrong 

message to send to China. #TimeToGetTough." 

 



 

Journal of World-System Research   |   Vol. 23   Issue 1  |   Territorial Contradictions of the Rise of China 

 

jwsr.org   |   DOI 10.5195/JWSR.2017.591 

20 

Kong. Especially the failure of the 79 days long occupation protest—known as the “Umbrella 

Revolution of 2014”—strengthened the pro-independence and self-determination movement 

among the youth. 

 

Understanding China’s Strategy of Containing Nationalism 

“Even as China's global influence increases,” Nathan and Scobell observe, “it is bedeviled to an 

unusual degree for a major power by what political scientists call 'problems of stateness'” (2012: 

195). These problems are further aggravated by the geo-political-economic significance of and 

variation within these nationalist movements. Claimed territories by Tibet and Xinjiang alone, 

account for almost one-third of the PRC's total area. With a GDP per capita level of $4,200, Tibet 

is among the poorest provinces in China. Xinjiang's GDP per capita level ($6,000) is slightly below 

mainland China's average per capita income ($6,700).11 Although these regions are not among the 

better off regions, they contain important mines and energy sources that China increasingly needs 

(Dreyer 2003:412; Becquelin 2004:365). For China, losing Tibet and Xinjiang means losing access 

to major gold, copper, coal and oil reserves as well as gas reserves and major potential for 

hydroelectric energy (Lafitte 2013; Nathan & Scobell 2012:199). In contrast to Tibet and Xinjiang, 

Taiwan and Hong Kong function as the cash-boxes of the 21st century. With GDP per capita levels 

of $21,000 and $38,000 respectively, these two major trading partners have huge economic and 

strategic importance for China. 

Vulnerability of China to nationalist unrest is further complicated by the fact that these 

contentious regions are also influenced by an unparalleled number of foreign actors. With twenty 

neighbors, no country in the world—except for Russia—has as many contiguous neighbors as 

China. Furthermore, some of China's neighbors—such as India, Pakistan, Russia, the Philippines, 

Indonesia, and Myanmar/Burma—have a very high number of militant and organized state-

seeking nationalist movements (Karataşlı et al 2012). Put differently, the region surrounding China 

is extremely vulnerable to state-seeking nationalist upheavals. These upheavals are likely to affect 

movements within China as well. With the dissolution of the USSR in 1989/91, a number of Turkic 

republics had already emerged in Central Asia, which deeply affected the Xinjiang movements. 

Although current nationalist-secessionist movements in China and a number of territorial disputes 

with neighboring countries—first and foremost with India—are among the “unfinished 

businesses” of the 1911-1949 period and the “Cultural Revolution,” the unfolding of these events 

in the recent decades is not totally independent from global developments.  

 Because of these complexities, the Chinese government’s strategy to contain these rising 

nationalist forces in the post-Mao reform period radically differs from its earlier policies. This is 

                                                                                                                                                             
11 All values are Nominal US dollars and they belong to the year 2013.   



 

Journal of World-System Research   |   Vol. 23   Issue 1  

 

jwsr.org   |   DOI 10.5195/JWSR.2017.591 

21 

a two-dimensional strategy, which is closely related to China’s rising economic strength in the last 

decades. The first dimension is related to the heavy reliance on development and welfare policies 

to solve these nationalist problems. Especially in its peripheral regions such as Tibet and Xinjiang, 

China has been trying to gain the consent of rebellious ethnic minorities through its “Go West 

policy.” This includes the introduction of development projects, construction of roads, highways, 

airports and the promotion of policies friendly to businesses and foreign investors, along with the 

provision of various services, gifts, and privileges (Goldstein 2004; Latiffe 2013:40; Wang 

2002:152; Mingxu 1998: 372; Yeh 2013; Smith 2008; Working 2001; Nathan and Skobell 2012; 

Becquelin 2004:360; BBC Monitoring Asia Pacific 2007; Kumral and Karataşlı 2013). The second 

dimension is related to the establishment of an inter-state coalition—which is also a South-South 

relation in the political sphere—and the skillful use of international diplomacy against forces of 

secessionist nationalism. In 2001, China pioneered the establishment of the Shanghai Cooperation 

Organization—consisting of China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan—

to foster cooperation and combat terrorism (including secessionism) in the region (Rosenthal 

2002:12; Nathan and Skobell 2012:164-168; Stern 2008:10). In addition, Beijing started to apply 

pressure to countries that are sympathetic to the Tibetan movement (like the United States and 

India) or to the Uyghur movement (like Turkey) in bilateral trade agreements. And since the 2008 

global economic crisis, China has been gaining leverage in these areas due to its key position in 

the global political economy and the concessions and promises it makes to other semi-peripheral 

and peripheral states in pursuit of containing secessionist movements in their own territories 

(Calmes 2011:8; Nathan and Skobell 2012:204-207; Sharma 2009:169; Van Schaik 2011:238-265; 

Shichor 2006; Shichor 2009; Gargan 1991).  

 

Preserving the Global Status Quo? 

Of course, China is not the first country to use international diplomacy and bilateral trade relations 

to promote stability at home. All states are pragmatic actors that engage in various sorts of 

coalitions and agreements to prevent international support of nationalist secessionist movements, 

any kind of revolutionary activities, anti-governmental movements or terrorism directed at 

themselves. Yet in most cases, the same pragmatic interests and consequences of bilateral 

negotiations also push states not only to condemn these sorts of movements but also to support 

some of them in different places. As we discussed in the first section of the article, this was true in 

the case of rising hegemonic powers. 

This is why the case of the PRC is interesting. China's efforts to build a coalition of anti-

secessionist movements have consequences that transcend its territorial boundaries. This is due to 

the complex set of relationships between the political-economic transformation in China, the rise 

of secessionist nationalist movements in Chinese territories, and the global macro-political context. 



 

Journal of World-System Research   |   Vol. 23   Issue 1  |   Territorial Contradictions of the Rise of China 

 

jwsr.org   |   DOI 10.5195/JWSR.2017.591 

22 

These structural conditions seem to push China to preserve the global status quo in a very 

consistent manner. 

When Kosovo unilaterally declared its independence in February 2008, for instance, more 

than 90 countries including the United states and most members of the European Union went ahead 

and recognized Kosovo, while China—together with Serbia, Russia, Georgia and Spain—did not 

(Freund 2012; Richter & Baum 2008). China not only denounced the independence of Kosovo but 

also made one of the strongest criticisms, stating in the international arena that sovereign states 

have the right to protect their integrity and prevent unilateral secessions. China's position against 

Kosovo cannot be understood merely in the light of pragmatic Chinese-Russian relationships. 

During the Olympic games in Beijing in 2008, for instance, Georgia attacked Abkhazia and South 

Ossetia, which seceded from Georgia in the early 1990s, creating an international crisis. And this 

time Russia recognized the independence of these two countries and brought the issue to the 

Shanghai Cooperation Organization. Russia demanded that the Shanghai Cooperation 

Organization support the independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. However, China, together 

with other members, declined to back Russia on this issue. 

Similarly, issues surrounding South Sudan were another interesting test for Chinese 

international policy regarding secessionist movements. Originally, Sudan People's Liberation 

Army (SPLA; South Sudan SPLA as of 2011) was supported by the USSR and other communist 

countries, such as Cuba. But after 1989, when an Islamic fundamentalist government—represented 

by Omar Hassan Al Bashir—came to power with a coup d'etat (Kock 2011:506) and the USSR 

and the communist bloc collapsed, this support has changed in profound ways. In the same time 

period, the South Sudanese rebels managed to gain most of the territories with oil supplies. The 

U.S. oil giant, Chevron, first discovered oil in Sudan in 1979. Since then, possession of and/or 

control over oil reserves have been a major impetus of war in both the Southern capital, Juba, and 

Khartoum (Kock 2011:506). From 1989 onwards, the U.S. government has placed Sudan on its 

list of state sponsors of terrorism. The Sudanese government sided with Iraq during the Gulf War 

and became a close ally of Libya (Njoku 2010:354). In 1998, the U.S. government bombed Al-

Shifa pharmaceutical factory in North Khartoum, assuming that the place was used for chemical 

weapons and connected to Al Qaeda.  

In the midst of all these tensions, another element was becoming critical. Sudan was 

becoming a key location for Chinese economic growth. China obtained 10% of its oil from Sudan 

and owned multi-billion dollar investments, which were concentrated mainly in the oil sector. As 

in the case of Iran, Chinese energy needs and deals were creating further tensions with the United 

States (Harvey 2003:139). As the South Sudanese secession movement was becoming more 

powerful, China became increasingly nervous about the separation of Sudan. Since 2001, the 

secession of South Sudan was on the global agenda (Kock 2011:506). Parallel to these 



 

Journal of World-System Research   |   Vol. 23   Issue 1  

 

jwsr.org   |   DOI 10.5195/JWSR.2017.591 

23 

developments, the atrocities in Sudan were becoming a global human rights problem with "Save 

Darfur" campaigns and strong Western coalition support of the South Sudanese right to self-

determination. The UN Security Council planned to organize a military intervention to Sudan but 

China thwarted these plans, using its veto power against these operations (Njoku, 2010:354). From 

the beginning to the end, China attempted to preserve the unity of Sudan. In 2011, during the height 

of the conflicts, China first tried to play the role of the mediator. After the 2011 referendum when 

South Sudan seceded from Sudan, China tried to do its best to establish trade relationships with 

South Sudan as well.  

As also confirmed by the most recent Crimean crisis, contemporary China is not willing to 

support any secessionist or irredentist activity that would create further instabilities. It is unclear 

whether China will continue to pursue this policy. As of now, however, the CCP appears to see 

little merit in supporting nationalist movements and encouraging a re-configuration of the inter-

state system. Its rising economic power already provides China an important degree of bargaining 

power vis-a-vis other great powers.  

This tendency is the diametrical opposite of the tendency of the United States since the 1990s. 

Paradoxically, in the most recent hegemonic crisis period, it is not the rising economic power but 

the declining hegemon that has been trying hard to alter the political geography of the inter-state 

system in order to regain its hegemonic position. Since the collapse of the USSR, the United States 

has been using all opportunities to demonstrate that it is still the greatest military power in the 

world (Harvey 2003; Arrighi 2007). That is probably why, starting with the First Gulf War, the 

U.S. government led a number of "humanitarian missions" and interventions around the world 

(Arrighi 2007:178-180). From then until 9/11, U.S. forces enthusiastically took part in the First 

Gulf War of 1990-91, the "Humanitarian Crisis" in Somalia 1992, the "Humanitarian Operation" 

in Bosnia (1992-95), the Kosovo War (1998-99) and many others. After 9/11, the U.S.-led “War 

on Terror” led to the war in Afghanistan (2001-present) and the invasion of Iraq (2003-Present). 

As a part of the “War on Terror,” since 2000 the U.S. government has conducted a series of military 

operations in Pakistan, Yemen, Kashmir, Northern Mali, and in the Horn of Africa. Although the 

United States was not at the forefront, we can also add the Libya intervention of 2011 to this long 

list. For our purposes it is important to underline that without exception in all of these territories, 

we can find strong nationalist or autonomist movements. Some of these movements managed to 

gain their independence (e.g. Kosovo), de facto autonomy, or control over federal governments 

(e.g. Kurds in Northern Iraq) after the U.S.-led military operations, and they established closer 

relationships with the U.S. government afterwards.  

 

 

 



 

Journal of World-System Research   |   Vol. 23   Issue 1  |   Territorial Contradictions of the Rise of China 

 

jwsr.org   |   DOI 10.5195/JWSR.2017.591 

24 

Not surprisingly, in most of these cases, the United States also found its interests in direct 

conflict with those of China.12 Hence, China's support for the global status quo can also be seen as 

direct resistance against U.S. interests as well. As Arrighi (2007) pointed out, the imperialist 

ambitions of the United States—such as the “War on Terror”—have already provided a space for 

China not only to advance its economic power but also to increase its consent-production 

capacities. It can be argued that the ability to counterbalance U.S. imperial ambitions and to 

provide international macro-political stability would itself be evidence of China’s increasing 

intellectual and moral leadership (hence “hegemonic”) capacities. In his “Rising Star: China’s New 

Security Concept,” for instance, Bates Gill (2007) argued that 

 

through a combination of pragmatic security policies, growing economic clout, and 

increasingly deft diplomacy, China has established productive and increasingly 

solid relationships throughout Asia and around the globe, to include new 

partnerships in Southeast Asia, Central Asia, Europe, Africa and South America. 

While these developments predate September 11, 2001, they have unfolded at a 

time of strategic preoccupation on the part of the United States, both in military 

operations in Afghanistan and Iraq and in the global counter-terrorism campaign. 

This last, in turn, has opened strategic space for China to expand its influence at 

both regional and global levels (Gill 2007:1). 

 

This can be seen as an example for how China advances its intellectual and moral leadership 

capacities through protection of the global status quo. 

 

Conclusion 

It was Mao who once said “the world is in chaos, the situation is excellent.” Today, the world 

seems to be in a period of chaos once again, but the contemporary CCP's evaluation of the situation 

is quite the opposite. This is more evident when we consider the escalation of nationalist 

movements in recent decades. Similar to previous hegemonic transition periods, during the decline 

of the U.S. hegemony, the world experienced rapid intensification of state-seeking nationalist 

movements (Karataşlı 2013). However, China considers these movements neither as a potential 

for revolution nor as a tool to gain global supremacy. 

                                                                                                                                                             
12 A similar tendency—to alter the geopolitical configuration of the inter-state system in order to gain power vis-a-vis 

its rivals—is also clear in the case of contemporary Russia, which has been supporting independence movements in 

many post-Soviet states, including Georgia (e.g. South Ossetia and Abkhazia) and Ukraine (e.g. Crimea, Donetsk, 

Luhansk) in order to incorporate them or to expand Russia’s influence over these regions. Indeed, annexation of 

Crimea by Russia in 2014 became the first instance of annexation by a European power since the end of World War 

II. 



 

Journal of World-System Research   |   Vol. 23   Issue 1  

 

jwsr.org   |   DOI 10.5195/JWSR.2017.591 

25 

 

In the literature, one can find a wide spectrum of explanations for China's desire to protect 

the status quo ranging from existence of ancient philosophical traditions, to the dissolution of 

communist ideology; from a conscious strategy of a “peaceful ascent” (heping jueqi), to the 

memories of its historic humiliation during the Opium Wars. In this paper, however, we offered 

an alternative perspective by examining the complex set of relationships surrounding the revival 

of nationalist movements in China and the PRC's attempts to contain them nationally and 

internationally. We argued that if China is slowly emerging as a protector of the integrity of the 

existing sovereign states of the current inter-state system, this is because China's own domestic 

problems and vulnerabilities—combined with its global trade networks and economic growth 

strategy—have been pushing it to play this role globally. After all, global political-economic 

stability is a key both for sustaining China’s economic growth and its territorial stability.13  

In this concluding section, we discuss the possible implications of this trajectory for 

hegemony-building processes. As we argued in the first section, in their rise to world hegemony 

all previous hegemonic powers—the United Provinces, the United Kingdom and the United 

States—aimed to reconfigure the world by leading a particular section of these movements to 

independence by supporting them directly and indirectly for very pragmatic purposes. These 

strategies helped them increase their leadership capacities on the one hand and present themselves 

as champions of a “more progressive” inter-state system reconfiguration on the other hand. If 

China is rising as a great power that attempts to preserve the status quo in a highly consistent 

manner, what does this trend mean in terms of the prospects and limits of China’s ascendancy?   

First, we must note that none of the previous hegemonic powers (or rival great powers for that 

matter) were faced with increasing centrifugal forces within their nation during their respective 

ascendancies on the scale China is facing today. For the United Provinces and the United States, 

the tendency was the opposite. In the course of their rise to world hegemony, they became more 

united than before. In the course of the Eight Years' War, the United Provinces became a new unit, 

which was no longer a collection of seventeen city-states. Likewise, on the eve of U.S. material 

expansion and before its bid for world hegemony, the Northern states of “the United States” 

crushed secessionist movements in the South. The American Civil War not only smashed state-

                                                                                                                                                             
13 We must note that these processes are also reinforced by other global-level political-economic developments that 

we cannot address here due to space limitations. Let us suffice to mention that Chinese corporations are still the 

beneficiary of the existing capitalist world economy hence they do not want any instabilities that would risk their 

profits. Considering that the current world hegemonic power does not have vast colonies to be liquidated, China does 

not have much to gain economically or politically by using the same liquidation strategy of the previous and current 

world hegemonic powers. Furthermore, the contemporary phase of “globalization” and “financialization” seems to 

have intensified socio-economic linkages and interlocked U.S. and Chinese corporations in the global commodity 

chain, making China very unwilling to disturb existing relationships.  

 



 

Journal of World-System Research   |   Vol. 23   Issue 1  |   Territorial Contradictions of the Rise of China 

 

jwsr.org   |   DOI 10.5195/JWSR.2017.591 

26 

seeking aspirations by brute force but also made “the United States” more united than before. As 

they say, “before the war, it was said ‘the United States are’” but after the war, ‘the United States 

is.’”14 

The case of the United Kingdom was rather different. As we already discussed, the loss of 

the thirteen colonies in the last quarter of the 18th century and simultaneous escalation of 

nationalist movements within its mainland territories (i.e. the Irish movement) made the United 

Kingdom more vulnerable to nationalist movements than its counterparts and pushed it to establish 

a conservative coalition with the Holy Alliance to suppress nationalist and patriotic forces in 

Europe. However, the level of nationalist movements in the United Kingdom was not as high as 

contemporary China and the existence of vast overseas colonial possessions helped the U.K. 

contain the Irish problem to a large extent. Thus, when necessary, the United Kingdom was still 

able to selectively and pragmatically support a large number of national liberation movements on 

both sides of the Atlantic in its rise to world hegemony.  

In contrast to all previous rising hegemonic powers, however, throughout its ascendancy 

China is facing strong centrifugal forces and secessionist movements on its mainland. In contrast 

to the United Provinces and the United States, China is not gradually becoming a more unified 

political entity during its ascendancy, and it feels the need to implement very elaborate 

containment mechanisms, policies and principles—such as the “One Country, Two Systems” 

principle—to maintain its territorial unity. In contrast to the British Empire, which had lost the 

Thirteen Colonies at an early period of systemic chaos, China has not lost any of its territories but 

even gained new ones such as Hong Kong and Macao. Also, considering that it is not a core state 

like the United Provinces, the United Kingdom, or the United States, but rather a peripheral state 

rapidly becoming a semiperipheral one, one can see how the structural conditions surrounding 

contemporary China are categorically different from previous and current world hegemonic 

powers. Therefore, containing secessionism is a more serious problem for China, than it was for 

the United Provinces, the United Kingdom and the United States. 

China’s territorial vulnerability is not independent from its rapid rise as well. As China climbs 

the ladder of the world power hierarchy, the United States’ policy-makers (and those of other great 

powers as well) are becoming more preoccupied than before with how to counter-balance Chinese 

power. In this discussion of realpolitik, nationalist problems in China such as Taiwan, Tibet, 

Xinjiang, its territorial disputes with neighbors, and rival claims in South China are at the forefront. 

Although Mearsheimer's (2001) or Kaplan's (2005) foreign policy proposals have their differences, 

                                                                                                                                                             
14 Interestingly, today, when Chinese authorities talk with US authorities on “sensitive matters” such as the Tibet or 

Taiwan problems, they often underline that they are taking the United States of the 1860s as their role model and they 

are doing nothing but following the teachings of the United States, especially those of Abraham Lincoln (Wong 2009; 

Wong 2012; Wachman 2010). 



 

Journal of World-System Research   |   Vol. 23   Issue 1  

 

jwsr.org   |   DOI 10.5195/JWSR.2017.591 

27 

they all focus on the same question: how to use these territorial vulnerabilities to contain the rise 

of China.  

In our analysis, we explained how these problems have been pushing China to increase its 

leadership capacities in the international sphere to contain secessionism at home. What does this 

mean for the possibility of China’s rise to world hegemony from a macro-political perspective?  

Of course, our analysis does not tell us whether or not China can rise to global political and 

economic preeminence in the following decades or sometime in the near future. However, we 

underline an interesting puzzle. If China continues its political-economic rise in the medium run 

but fails in coordinating the existing sovereign states for the preserving the global status quo, we 

argue, it would probably be more difficult to keep its political-territorial unity in the long run. Put 

differently, although Chinese policy makers make it clear that they do not seek hegemony, these 

rising territorial vulnerabilities have been pushing China to play the role of a hegemon. 

Preservation of territorial unity is the primary drive. Without its territorial unity, it will be very 

difficult to sustain its economic strength. Thus failing to reestablish and to preserve international 

stability will be a limit to its rise. To contain its internal problems, territorial unity and economic 

strength, China needs a more stable international order. This requires leading a large number of 

states in pursuit of providing international stability, and countering acts of imperialist aggression 

(primarily the ones increasingly implemented by the United States), which create macro-political 

instability in the world.  

We are skeptical about the plausibility of this scenario where China becomes a new world 

hegemonic power, as we understand the term today. The current path China follows is akin to the 

path followed by Genoese merchant-traders of the mid-fifteenth century who established a 

“political exchange” with the Iberian kings. In this Genoese-Iberian systemic cycle of 

accumulation, which was a non-hegemonic period of capitalist world economy spanning from the 

mid-fifteenth century to the mid-sixteenth century, the Genoese “capitalists” were the economic 

motor of the capitalist world economy. The Iberian powers were the geopolitical and territorial 

motor (Arrighi 1994). Of course, China’s current path is also different from the Genoese merchant-

traders in key respects. For one thing, the state apparatus and military power of contemporary 

China is extremely strong in direct contrast to the Genoese in the 15th century. Consequently, in 

contrast to the Genoese-Iberian “political exchange,” contemporary China does not leave world 

affairs completely at the hands of the United States, but it also pressures the United States not to 

alter and disturb the geopolitical configuration of the current inter-state system. Still, however, 

when territorial configuration of the inter-state system changes—as in the cases of South Sudan 

and Crimea—China tries its best to avoid conflicts with great powers. 

From this perspective, then, even if China became a new hegemon, the inter-state system it 

will be leading would not be a new (i.e., a more “progressive” and more “democratic”) system. On 



 

Journal of World-System Research   |   Vol. 23   Issue 1  |   Territorial Contradictions of the Rise of China 

 

jwsr.org   |   DOI 10.5195/JWSR.2017.591 

28 

the contrary, instead of altering the geopolitical configuration of the inter-state system, it will be 

leading the former inter-state system established by the previous hegemonic power. Still, even if 

this scenario occurred, from a macro-political perspective, China’s rise to world hegemony will 

not be a replica of the previous instances of hegemonic transitions but will be a radical and major 

rupture from the existing patterning we have observed so far. It will be a perfect example of a 

stalemate in which, if we may borrow from Antonio Gramsci, “the old is dying but the new cannot 

be born.”  

 

 

 

About the Authors 

Şahan Savaş Karataşlı is an Associate Research Scholar at Princeton University.  His main areas 

of research include comparative-historical sociology, sociology of nationalism, social movements, 

financialization and global inequality. 

 

Şefika Kumral is a Postdoctoral Research Associate at Johns Hopkins University. Her main areas 

of research include comparative-historical and political sociology with a focus on ethnic violence, 

democratization, social movements, and far-right. 

 

 

Disclosure Statement 

Any conflicts of interest are reported in the acknowledgments section of the article’s text. 

Otherwise, authors have indicated that they have no conflict of interests upon submission of their 

article to the journal.  

 

  



 

Journal of World-System Research   |   Vol. 23   Issue 1  

 

jwsr.org   |   DOI 10.5195/JWSR.2017.591 

29 

References 

Amin, Samir, Giovanni Arrighi, Andre G. Frank, and Immanuel Wallerstein. 1982. Dynamics of 

Global Crisis. New York: Monthly Review Press 

Anderson, Benedict. 2012. Modern Monarchies in a Global Comparative Perspective. Retrieved 

Jan 08, 2012, from Conference on Democracy and Crisis in Thailand: 

(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H721zVo9A0I) 

Arrighi, Giovanni. 1978. Geometry of Imperialism: The Limits of Hobson's Paradigm. London: 

New Left Books. 

Arrighi, Giovanni. 1994. The Long Twentieth Century: Money, Power, and the Origins of Our 

Times . New York: Verso. 

Arrighi, Giovanni. 2007. Adam Smith in Beijing: Lineages of the Twenty-First Century. London 

& New York: Verso. 

Arrighi, Giovanni and Beverly J. Silver. 1999. Chaos and Governance in the Modern World 

System. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. 

Arrighi, Giovanni, Terence K. Hopkins, and Immanuel Wallerstein. 1989. Antisystemic 

Movements. New York: Verso. 

Barnett, Robert. 2009. “The Tibet Protests of Spring 2008. Conflict between the Nation and the 

State.” China Perspectives 3:6-23. 

BBC Monitoring Asia Pacific. 2007. “Xinhua Commentary on China's "successful" Policy on 

Ethnic Groups.” BBC Monitoring Asia Pacific, May 3 

Becquelin, Nicolas. 2004. “Staged Development in Xinjiang.” The China Quarterly 178:358-378 

Bergesen, Albert and Ronald Schoenberg. 1980. “Long Waves of Colonial Expansion and 

Contraction, 1415-1969”. Pp.231-277 in Studies of the Modern World System, edited by 

Albert Bergesen. New York: Academic Press 

Bovingdon, Gardner. 2004. “Heteronomy and Its Discontents: Minzu Regional Autonomy in 

Xinjiang.” Pp.117-154 in Governing China’s Multiethnic Frontiers, edited by M. 

Rossabi. Seattle and London: University of Washington Press. 

Blunden, Andy. 1977 [2013]. “Baku Congress of the Peoples of the East”. Retrieved Jan 13, 

2013, from Marxist Internet Archive, 

(http://www.marxists.org/history/international/comintern/baku/delegates.htm) 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H721zVo9A0I


 

Journal of World-System Research   |   Vol. 23   Issue 1  |   Territorial Contradictions of the Rise of China 

 

jwsr.org   |   DOI 10.5195/JWSR.2017.591 

30 

Bockman, Harald. 1992. “The Brewing Ethnic Conflicts in China and Their Historical 

Background.” Pp.183-198 in Ethnicity and Conflict in a Post-Communist World,edited 

by O. Vorkunova, P. King, & K. Rupesinghe. London: The Macmillan Press. 

Boswell, Terry and Christopher K. Chase-Dunn. 2000. The Spiral of Capitalism and Socialism: 

Toward Global Democracy. London: Lynne Rienner Publishers. 

Cabestan, Jean-Pierre. 2011. “Taiwan-China: A Case of Secession or a Divided Nation.” Pp.483-

485 in The Ashgate Research Companion to Secession, edited by A. Pavkovic and P. 

Radan. Farnham, England: Ashgate. 

Calmes, Jackie. 2011. “Dalai Lama and Obama Meet to Talk About Tibet.” New York Times, 

July 11: p.8. 

Ciccantell, Paul S. and Stephen G. Bunker. 2004. “The Economic Ascent of China and The 

Potential For Restructuring the Capitalist World-Economy.” Journal of World-Systems 

Research, 10(3):564-589. 

Connor, Walker. 1984. The National Question in Marxist-Leninist Theory and Strategy. 

Princeton: Princeton University Press. 

Donnet, Pierre-Antoine. 1994. Tibet Survival in Question. NJ: Zed Books 

Dreyer, June Teufel. 2003. “Economic Development in Tibet under the People's Republic of 

China.” Journal of Contemporary China 12(36):411-430. 

Elliott, John H. 1970. “Revolts in the Spanish Monarchy.” Pp.109-130 in Preconditions of 

Revolution in Early Modern Europe, edited by R. Forster and J. P. Greene. Baltimore and 

London: The Johns Hopkins Press. 

Elliott, John H. 1997. “Revolution and Continuity in Early Modern Europe.” Pp.108-127 in The 

General Crisis of the Seventeenth Century edited by G. Parker and L. M. Smith. London 

and New York: Routledge. 

Elliott, John H. 2002. Imperial Spain 1469-1716. New York: Penguin Books. 

Freund, Michael. 2012. “From Kosovo to Catalonia.” Jerusalem Post, September 20: p15. 

Gargan, Edward A. 1991. “Chinese-Indian Talks Seems to Favor Beijing.” New York Times, 

December 15:p8. 

Gill, Bates. 2007. Rising Star: China’s New Security Diplomacy. Washington D.C: The 

Brookings Institution 



 

Journal of World-System Research   |   Vol. 23   Issue 1  

 

jwsr.org   |   DOI 10.5195/JWSR.2017.591 

31 

Gladney, Dru. C. 2003. China's Minorities: The Case of Xinjiang and the Uyghur People. 

Commission on Human Rights Sub-Commission on Promotion and Protection of Human 

Rights Working Group on Minorities Ninth session. Geneva: Office of the United 

Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. 

Goldstein, Melvyn C. 2004. “Tibet and China in the Twentieth Century.” Pp. 186-229 in 

Governing China’s Multiethnic Frontiers, edited by M. Rossabi. Seattle and London: 

University of Washington Press 

Gramsci, Antonio. ([1971] 2003). Selections from the Prison Notebooks of Antonio Gramsci, 

edited by Q. Hoare and G. N. Smith. New York: International Publishers. 

Gulick, John. 2011. “The Long Twentieth Century and Barriers to China's Hegemonic 

Accession.” Journal of World Systems Research 17(1):4-38. 

Harvey, David. 2003. The New Imperialism. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 

Hayes, Carlton J. 1959. Modern Europe to 1870. New York: MacMillan Company. 

Henige, David P. 1970. Colonial Governors From the Fifteenth Century to the Present: A 

Comprehensive List. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. 

Hobsbawm, Eric. 1992. Nations and Nationalism since 1780: Programme, Myth, Reality (2. 

edition ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 

Hung, Ho Fung. 2015. The China Boom: Why China Will Not Rule the World. Columbia: 

Columbia University Press. 

Husmann, Lisa E. 1994. “'National Unity' and National Identities in the People's Republic of 

China”. Pp.141-157 in Geography and National Identity, edited by D. Hooson, Oxford: 

Blackwell. 

Jacques, Martin. 2009. When China Rules the World: The Rise of the Middle Kingdom and the 

End of the Western World. London: Penguin Books. 

Kamen, Henry. 2005. Spain, 1469-1714: A Society of Conflict. London: Longman. 

Kaplan, Robert D. 2005. “How We Would Fight China.” Atlantic Monthly, June: 49-64. 

Karataşlı, Şahan Savaş. 2013. Financial Expansions, Hegemonic Transitions and Nationalism: A 

Longue Durée Analysis of State-Seeking Nationalist Movements. Unpublished Ph.D 

Dissertation, Department of Sociology, Johns Hopkins University  



 

Journal of World-System Research   |   Vol. 23   Issue 1  |   Territorial Contradictions of the Rise of China 

 

jwsr.org   |   DOI 10.5195/JWSR.2017.591 

32 

Karataşlı, Şahan Savaş, Fatih Aktaş, Merve Fidan, Sibel Şentürk. 2012. “Fragments of Nations 

and Nationalisms: Towards a Typology of 21st Century Nationalisms”. International 

Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities 4(1): 325-334 

Kock, Petrus de. 2011. “Southern Sudan's Secession from the North.” Pp.505-507 in Ashgate 

Research Companion To Secession, edited by A. Pavkovic, & P. Radan. Farnham: 

Ashgate. 

Kristof, Nicholas D. 1992. “Restlessness Reaches Mongols in China.” New York Times, July 19: 

p. 3. 

Kumral, Şefika. 2013 “The CCP and National Liberation Movements in China Before and After 

the Communist Revolution.” Presented at the 23rd Annual Meeting of Association for the 

Study of Ethnicity and Nationalism (ASEN), April 9-11, London School of Economics, 

London 

Kumral, Şefika and Şahan Savaş Karataşlı. 2013. “Containing Nationalism in China in the 20th 

Century”, Presented at the Annual Meeting of American Sociological Association, 

August 13, New York. 

Lafitte, Gabriel. 2013. Spoiling Tibet: China and Resource Nationalism on the Roof of the 

World. London & New York: Zed Books 

Lachmann, Richard. 2000. Capitalists in Spite of Themselves: Elite Conflict and Economic 

Transitions in the Early Modern Europe. New York & Oxford: Oxford University Press. 

Lachmann, Richard. 2010. States and Power. Cambridge: Polity Press 

McMichael, Philip. 2012. Development and Social Change: A Global Perspective. London: 

Sage.  

Mearshemier, John. 2011. The Tragedy of Great Power Politics. New York: W. W. Norton 

Minahan, James. 2002. Encyclopedia of Stateless Nations: Ethnic and National Groups Around 

The World. Westport: Greenwood Press. 

Mingxu, Xu. 1998. “Complete Autonomy: The Best Approach to Peaceful Resolution of the 

Tibet Problem.” Journal of Contemporary China, 7(18):369-378. 

Moseley, George and Chih-I. Chang. 1966. The Party and the National Question in China. 

Cambridge: MIT Press. 

Nathan, Andrew J. and Andrew Scobell. 2012. China's Search for Security. New York: 

Columbia University Press. 



 

Journal of World-System Research   |   Vol. 23   Issue 1  

 

jwsr.org   |   DOI 10.5195/JWSR.2017.591 

33 

Norbu, Dawa. 1979. “The 1959 Tibetan Rebellion: An Interpretation.” The China Quarterly 

77:74-93. 

Njoku, Raphael C. 2010. “Nationalism, Separatism, and Neoliberal Globalism: A Review of 

Africa and the Quest for Self-Determination since the 1940s.” Pp. 33-360 in Secession as 

an International Phenomenon: From America's Civil War to Contemporary Separatist 

Movements, edited by D. H. Doyle. Athens and London: The University of Georgia 

Press. 

Parker, Geoffrey and Lesley M. Smith. 1978. “Introduction.” Pp.1-31 in The General Crisis of 

the Seventeenth Century, edited by G. Parker, & L. M. Smith. London and New York: 

Routledge. 

Parker, Geoffrey. 1978. “The Dutch Revolt and the Polarization of International Politics”. Pp.57-

82 in The General Crisis of the Seventeenth Century, edited by G. Parker, & L. M. Smith. 

London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. 

Polanyi, Karl. [1994] 2001. The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of 

Our Times (2nd edition ed.). Boston: Beacon Press. 

Rapport, Michael. 2005. Nineteenth-Century Europe. New York: Palgrave MacMillan. 

Richter, Paul and Geraldine Baum. 2008. “U.S., Many in EU Recognize Kosovo.” Los Angeles 

Times, February 19:p.A7. 

Rosenthal, Elisabeth. 2002. “A Nation Challenged: Diplomacy.” New York Times, January 

8:p.12. 

Sharma, Shalendra D. 2009. China and India in the Age of Globalization. Cambridge: 

Cambridge University Press 

Shichor, Yitzhak. 2006. “China's Kurdish Policy.” China Brief: The Jamestown Foundation 6(1), 

Retrieved Jan 08, 2012, 

(http://www.jamestown.org/programs/chinabrief/single/?tx_ttnews%5Btt_news%5D=312

35&tx_ttnews%5BbackPid%5D=196&no_cache=1#.V6IRkOcrI1g) 

Shichor, Yitzhak. 2009. “Turkey Trot: Military Cooperation between Beijing and Ankara.” 

China Brief: The Jamestown Foundation 9(8). Retrieved Jan 08, 2012 

(http://www.jamestown.org/single/?no_cache=1&tx_ttnews%5Btt_news%5D=34868#.V

6ISHucrI1g) 



 

Journal of World-System Research   |   Vol. 23   Issue 1  |   Territorial Contradictions of the Rise of China 

 

jwsr.org   |   DOI 10.5195/JWSR.2017.591 

34 

Silver, Beverly J. and Eric Slater. 1999. “The Social Origins of World Hegemonies.” Pp151-216 

in Chaos and Governance in the Modern World System, edited by G. Arrighi and B. J. 

Silver. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. 

Skocpol, Theda.1979. States and Social Revolutions: A Comparative Analysis of France, Russia, 

and China. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 

Smith Jr, Warren W. 2008. China's Tibet?: Autonomy Or Assimilation. Plymouth: Rowman & 

Littlefield Publishers. 

Smith Jr. Warren W. 2010. Tibet's last stand? The Tibetan uprising of 2008 and China's 

response. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield. 

Stern, David L. 2008. “Regional Security Group Takes a Neutral Stance on Russia's Actions in 

Georgia.” New York Times, August 29:p.10. 

Taagepera, Rein. 1997. “Expansion and contraction patterns of large polities: Context for 

Russia.” International Studies Quarterly 41(3):475-504. 

Tilly, Charles. 1994. “States and Nationalism in Europe 1492-1992.” Theory and Society 

23:131-146. 

Van Ness, Peter. 1970. Revolution and Chinese Foreign Policy: Peking’s Support for Wars of 

National Liberation. Berkeley: University of California Press 

Van Schaik, Sam. 2011. Tibet: A History. New Haven and London: Yale University Press. 

Wachman, Alan M. 2010. “Did Abraham Lincoln Oppose Taiwan's Secession From China?” 

Pp.361-360 in Secession as an International Phenomenon: From America's Civil War to 

Contemporary Separatist Movements, edited by D. H. Hoyle. Athens, Georgia: 

University of Georgia Press. 

Wallerstein, Immanuel. 2011. The Modern World-System IV: Centrist Liberalism Triumphant, 

1789-1914. Berkeley: University of California Press 

Wang, Lixiong. 2002. “The ‘Tibetan Question’: Nation and Religion.” Pp.151-172 Exploring 

Nationalisms of China: Themes and Conflicts, edited by C. X. G. Wei and X. Liu. 

Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press. 

Wimmer, Andreas and Brian Min. 2006. “From Empire to Nation-State: Explaining War in the 

Modern World, 1816-2001.” American Sociological Review 71(6): 867-897. 

Wong, Edward. 2009. “China Shows Focus on Territorial Issues as It Equates Tibet and Civil 

War South.” New York Times, November 14:p.6. 



 

Journal of World-System Research   |   Vol. 23   Issue 1  

 

jwsr.org   |   DOI 10.5195/JWSR.2017.591 

35 

Wong, Edward. 2012. “Chinese Vice President Urges U.S. to Respect 'Core Interests'.” New 

York Times, February 16: p.14. 

Working, Russell. 2001. “China's Own Muslim Nationalists.” The Moscow Times, October 26: 

No.2314 

WuDunn, Sheryl. 1991. “Beijing Cracks Down on Mongol Dissidents.” The New York Times, 

July 28:p.11. 

Xingwu, Liu. 1988. “China's Policy Towards Her Minority Nationalities.” Social Scientist 

16(1):136-159. 

Yeh, Emily T. 2013. Taming Tibet: Landscape Transformation and the Gift of Chinese 

Development. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. 


	Journal of World-Systems Research
	Vol. 1 |  DOI 10.5195/JWSR.1
	References