ann
(Ann)
#1
Wang’s views are informed not only by human actions, the Manchu
conquest chief among them, but also by the ecology of China proper,
particularly its terrain. A complex, and not always consistent, interplay of
culture and nature forms a version of the Hanspace construct so innately
powerful that it renders long-term non-Han residence in China unnatural.
“Numinous natural defenses” (tiangu), especially potent south of the
Yangzi, made it physically impossible for non-Han to exist in China over
the long term. Non-Han“naturally know that this is not their land”and
that their incursion violates“a natural law [tianji]...by abandoning the
land where they can properly dwell and thereby endure.”^34 In some
respects here and elsewhere, Wang invokes a type of ethnic cleansing
for China proper naturally effected by the region’s own ecosystem.
Humans, however, play an active role in their own formation as a
distinct group when“early in the life of a people...they unite...and
keep harm at a distance by expelling their mongrels.”It is also critical for
a ruler to establish unity within this newly emergent“ethnos”(lei)by
controlling their “own territory” through their“own principles” to
“bring forth the creativeqi-force of celestialyangand terrestrialyin.”
An ethnos takes active advantage of its natural surroundings to reinforce
itself. Rulers thus“employ the substance ofqito consolidate their natural
territories,”especially in terms of siting the dynastic capital.^35 Subsequent
dynastic history is conceived as a struggle to maintain this formative and
pristine environmental relationship against incursion.
Space, especially as distance, is a critical category for ethnic identity
because it can preserve or erode an ethnos. TheRong andDiwere
actually ethnic casualties of just such an erosion in Wang’s view. Both
had been“people of China”until“they declined over generations, and
the Way [i.e., Han culture] failed until they sank to a different race.”This
decline occurred as a direct result of isolation from a disjointed imperial
center, comparable to Hu Wei’s“core of the state”and the attenuated
effects of itsshengjiaoover expanding distances. When the center frag-
mented at the end of the Zhou dynasty,“lords of mountain crannies and
shorelines were established on heights and, confident in such defenses, did
not attend at court audiences.”The subjects of these ineffectual polities,
including theRongandDi, became“scattered across the streams, moun-
tains, forests, and valleys of China, constantly ranging about so that they
became wandering peoples.”^36 Physical isolation within China proper,
augmented by defensible natural terrain of remote mountains and shores,
blocked the court center’s ideological hegemony ofshengjiaothrough the
ritual media of distinctively Han culture such as“court audiences.”
34 Across Forest, Steppe, and Mountain
