Second, its relations with its neighbours were not based on recognition of equality. First, the Qing Dynasty empire was not a nation-state. This was thus an international order of states that differed from the Westphalian order of nation-states. Finally, beyond the areas that they controlled themselves, they claimed authority over numerous tributary states. The Qing Dynasty brought many different ethnic groups under their control, and through campaigns of conquest they extended their control, particularly towards the west, over an enormous territory. While the concept was easy to understand it was an extremely difficult concept to apply to China, which was then ruled by the Qing Dynasty.
In the late nineteenth century the idea was picked up by Chinese reformers like Liang Qichao. He did so in 1866 using four characters which meant “the right of self-mastery” or “the right of autonomy”. An American missionary WAP Martin is generally credited to be the first person to translate this in to an East Asian language. Today sovereignty refers to supreme power over a group of people and territory, a Western concept originating with the Peace Westphalia in the seventeenth century. There was no term in Chinese language to define sovereignty till the nineteenth century. Drawing and redrawing boundaries is symptomatic – partly aspirational and part aggressive assertion. Maps are an important aspect of the continual self-crafting of any nation’s image.
Chinese official maps are ‘imaginative’ and often ‘fictional’, inscribing territories that are not under state control…
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