Inner Asian Frontiers of China and Some Peoples Without Others

Borderland studies are revising the historiography of imperialism in China. Two representative examples are reviewed here that insightfully consider the equivocal effects of Russian and Japanese influence on the formation of Chinese and Korean national space in northern Xinjiang and the Sino-Korean border. In this altered narrative of nation-state formation, however, indigenous peoples remain marginal to the discussion.This essay discusses the following works. Judd C. Kinzley. Natural Resources and the New Frontier: Constructing Modern China's Borderlands. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2018. 234 pp. $105.00 (cloth), $35.00 (paper). | Nianshen Song. Making Borders in Modern East Asia: The Tumen River Demarcation, 1881–1919. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018. 303 pp. $99.99 (cloth), $30.99 (paper).