The Colonization of an Outlying Dependency

Abstract

This chapter turns to a different—annexationist—facet of provincialism, exploring how provincial sentiment drove Sichuanese elites to advocate the colonization of Tibet as a means of protecting their native province, and how their advocacy ultimately shaped state policy. It begins by outlining Qing rulers’ traditional policy toward Tibet and the new geopolitical challenges they confronted in the late nineteenth century. It then examines how Japanese discourses on Tibet—shaped by Western theories of national imperialism—inspired an ambition to annex Tibet among Sichuanese elites in Japan. It concludes by uncovering a little-known process through which a colonial impulse in Sichuan, coupled with a state-building agenda in Beijing, prompted the reconfiguration of Tibet.