Your Hawaii-based writer Richard Halloran summarizes the history of Mongolia after Genghis Khan as being "loosely ruled by China until 1921" ("Mongolia ready for visit," Nov. 21, page 9).
This is to distort the picture along the old familiar lines of "Greater China," which we should no longer parrot unquestioningly.
The Ming Dynasty, which was established in China by the throwing off of the Mongols, had no claim on Mongol lands.
Halloran should begin his period of "loose rule" at the very soonest sometime after the fall of the Ming in 1644. In skipping from Genghis Khan to the Manchus he suggests that when the Mongols are not in world-conquering mode they simply fall within the Chinese orbit.
Furthermore, it's by no means clear that the giant Qing empire that succeeded the Ming ought to be considered "Chinese."
Most Han natives never ceased to regard the Manchus as an unacceptable foreign occupation -- rather like the earlier Mongol one. Cheng Cheng-kung (鄭成功), or Koxinga (國姓爺), as he is also known, who seized and held Taiwan as a base against the Manchus, presented himself as a Ming loyalist and a true Han son of China.
When the island was eventually reduced and annexed it became Qing imperial territory. But how can this make it "Chinese," when China proper -- the Ming -- had earlier been likewise reduced?
Mongolia came to belong to the Qing in a similar way, as did Tibet. The current occupants of the Forbidden City have an obvious interest in having the world regard these imperial annexations as being somehow naturally "Chinese." The same may be said for the loyal opposition in Taipei's legislature. However, this picture doesn't stand up to the exacting standards of historical inquiry, nor should it satisfy your readers.
As the inhabitants of one former Qing possession, it behooves Taiwanese to question the ongoing propagation of this retroactive and "natural" national affiliation -- no matter which outnumbered people of the old empire it seeks to dominate.
Trevor Long
Gulangyu, Xiamen
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