| Reluctant
Pioneers is a clearly written and fascinating account of the Chinese
settlement in Manchuria during the Qing and Republican periods. Prior
to the nineteenth century, this agriculturally rich region the size of
the six states of the upper Midwest was sparsely populated by peoples
ethnically and culturally different from the Chinese. Reardon-Anderson
points out that as late as 1820 there were only two million, mostly non-Chinese
in the huge region. The Qing sought to keep Manchuria separate from China
proper by establishing a manorial system of landed estates to support
Manchu and Mongol service nobility and the banner troops; ethnic Chinese
were prohibited from settling there. In the late nineteenth century, faced
with financial problems and worried about Russian expansion, the dynasty
began selling land to ethnic Chinese and eventually promoted their settlement.
Population pressure in north China drove many peasants into this new land.
By 1940, there were 40 million people in Manchuria, over 85 percent ethnically
Chinese.
Reardon-Anderson examines this expansion, seeking to understand how it
impacted both Manchuria and China as a whole. In particular, he addresses
the debate over whether, as Thomas Rawski and Loren Brandt have argued,
China achieved higher productivity in agriculture from 1870-1930 or if,
as Philip Huang and Sucheta Mazumdar believe, economic growth was merely
a factor of population growth rather than development. Reardon-Anderson
comes down on the side of the latter, who maintain that an unfavorable
balance between population and resources and the failure to develop new
agricultural techniques in fact resulted in stagnation in terms of output
per capita.
What makes this book most useful for those interested in world history
is the author's comparative approach to the study of the Chinese frontier.
Along with Russia and the U.S., he points out, China was one of the three
great empires that expanded its frontiers in the seventeenth through the
nineteenth centuries and then went on to become a global power. How, Reardon-Anderson
asks, did the frontier foster change in Manchuria and in China? What role
did the frontier/borderlands play in the development of China, and how
was it similar to the impact of frontier in the U.S. and Russia? After
reviewing the Frederick Jackson Turner thesis (which posits that the existence
of the frontier shapes attitudes and institutions in the heartland), he
turns to the theoretical insights of the "new Western historians" who
see frontiers as dynamic areas of cultural interaction between empires
and the non-state world. In the case of the China-Manchuria frontier,
Reardon-Anderson argues that neither model is appropriate. Indeed, he
argues that Manchuria did not have a significant impact on Chinese institutions
and culture, nor was it a middle ground where cultures interacted. Instead,
the Manchurian frontier was incorporated into China as economic and cultural
patterns were simply reproduced there with little modification. This lack
of change can be explained by the fact that Chinese settlers brought with
them their deeply rooted family patterns, traditions of partible inheritance,
a religious focus on ancestor worship, farming methods, and small-scale
family enterprises. This point is supported at the end of the book by
examining literature of the Northeastern Writers, a group of young authors
who grew up in Manchuria in the early twentieth century and wrote about
rural life there. The author finds their descriptions of village society
little different from accounts of life south of the Great Wall. In short,
in contrast to the Russian and American experience the "Chinese expanded
by the replication of existing forms and practices rather than the creation
or invention of something new." (261)
The reasons for this are partly geographical. Most of these settlers were
from neighboring provinces in North China and entered a region where soil
and climatic factors made it possible for them to maintain their customary
cultivation practices and lifestyles. Geographic proximity, the long winters,
and frozen rivers made seasonal travel back to home towns and families
easy. Furthermore, the author finds these settlers had little sense of
going off to a frontier: rather, they reluctantly edged into borderlands
while maintaining a close attachment and connection to their adjacent
homelands. Geography, however, was not the only explanation. In addition,
Reardon-Anderson argues that a combination of social and cultural patterns
discouraged innovation, change, and creative adaptation. He supports this
by showing how Chinese settlers in Manchuria adhered to customary practices,
failing to take full advantage of opportunities presented by the abundant
resources of Manchuria, by Russian and Japanese railroads, and other new
developments.
Although scholars may disagree with some of his arguments, Reardon-Anderson
presents them clearly and convincingly. He avoids jargon, writes lucidly,
and presents some interesting examples, including foreign observations,
to support his points. Thus the book is quite accessible to the non-specialist
and could probably be assigned at the undergraduate level. Also useful
are the eight maps, two charts and fourteen photographs. Reluctant
Pioneers is well worth reading for anyone with an interest in modern
Chinese or frontier/borderlands history.
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