Coda

Abstract

This chapter begins by summarizing the book’s core arguments, reaffirming the value of a trialectic framework—local, national, and transnational—for understanding modern Chinese history. It then extends the discussion beyond 1912—the endpoint of preceding chapters—to examine how localism continued to shape Republican China’s efforts to reorganize the constituents of the former empire. Through brief case studies of the United Self-Governing Provinces Movement, Sino-Tibetan interactions, the Chinese Nationalist Party’s propaganda during the Northern Expedition, and the Rural Reconstruction Movement, the chapter traces how the legacies of the four localist strategies examined earlier surfaced in new configurations during the first half of the twentieth century.