X01: Mid-term review

High-level indicators

• Critically engages with the text and draws plausible historical inferences
• Connects the document to broader historical events, contexts, themes
• Reflects on the quality and value of the evidence
• Registers assumptions of the author
• Considers our own baises and/or external factors that affect understanding
• Draws conclusion with caution

Low-level indicators

• More descriptive than analytical
• Fails to see the document’s interest and potential value
• Accepts the author’s statements and judgments at face value
• Makes no attempt to evaluate the nature and quality of evidence, or merely asserts “bias” without qualification
• Concludes too emphatically without qualification

• Registers Du Mu’s Confucian critique of Qin: it collapsed because it didn’t display love and benevolence to its subjects;
• Compares and contrast Du’s view of Qin with earlier Confucian historiography, such as Jia Yi’s essay, Faults of Qin;
• Considers alternative explanations for Qin’s collapse – imperial overreach, eunuch control, etc. – beyond Du’s analysis;
• Contextualizes changing notions of rulership in pre-Qin China and sources of unity around the emperor: How did “the heart of one person” become “the heart of millions”?

• Notes Du’s sympathies for women, especially the concubines and consorts, and analyzes their role in political struggles;
• Considers Du Mu’s own time of writing – Tang in the aftermath of the An Lushan Rebellion – and how he uses Qin history to lament the contemporary decline of Tang;
• Examines the moral and pedagogical function of history: What lessons should later generations learn from the past?

• Fails to register the Confucian critique of Du Mu and his diagnosis of Qin’s collapse;
• Overlooks the legacy of Han-dynasty historiography on Qin, and how it distorts our understanding of the Qin, especially the first emperor;
• Offers little context to the rise and fall of Qin, especially the interstate relationship: Why, for example, does Du believe that “the ones who destroyed the six states were the six states themselves, not Qin”?

• Has little to say about Du Mu’s chosen medium – rhapsody, a predominant literary style during the Han dynasty – contributes to the meaning of the poem;
• Misses Du’s own contemporary context, especially An Lushan Rebellion, as motivation for his writing;
• Does not consider the reception of Du Mu’s message for future generations, especially his fear of dynastic cycles tending towards despotic, one-man rule;
• Overly negative about the moralizing tendency of Confucian writings.

• Assesses Di Cosmo’s key argument that Emperor Wu of Han’s military success against the Xiongnu was based on superior military capabilities and strategic alliances with Xiongnu’s neighbors;
• Engages with Di Cosmo’s puzzle as to why, after failed appeasement policies, the Han dramatically shifted its strategy and launched an all-out campaign against the Xiongnu;
• Historicizes the relationship between the central plain and the steppe people, from the warring states period to the Han dynasty;
• Considers the relevance of the salt and iron debate for understanding Han’s frontier policies, especially as to whether the campaign could be justified as an act of “defensive acquisition”;

• Contextualizes the Han’s strategies of incorporating northern frontiers into the empire (such as migration of settlers, use of Xiongnu soldiers as frontier garrisons), and considers their efficacies;
• Analyzes how war with Xiongnu fostered state-building in Han and changed its political economy (through development of government monopolies, etc.);
• Reflects on the role of nomads in shaping Chinese history, and considers biases and limitations of existing sources.

• Offers little context as to how the war with Xiongnu changed Han’s political economy, especially the creation of key government monopolies and enlargement of the bureaucratic state;
• Has little to say about the organization of the Xiongnu, its tribal organization, and relationship with the Han Empire;
• Only summarizes the Salt and Iron debate without explaining its larger stakes – especially its impact on Han’s ability to finance the war against the steppe;

• Fails to engage with Di Cosmo’s contention that Han’s campaign against the Xiongnu was shaped by not only ideological victory of the realist / Legalist faction of the court, but by a host of military, economic, and diplomatic developments in the rest of the Han empire;
• Offers little context to the history of Xiongnu-Han/Qin relationship before Emperor Wu’s military campaigns;
• Has little to say about the rewards of (and potential pushback against) de-centering China and focusing on the Xiongnu as a rival empire to Qin and Han.

• Engages with Zhang Weiwei’s main argument about the fundamental continuity of Chinese civilization as one “unity in diversity”;
• Assesses the efficacy of his evidence (dragon motif, reference to Taiwan, ethnic minorities, etc.)
• Situates Zhang’s point about the Great Unity in earlier writings on the topic, especially during the Warring States period;
• Considers periods of disunity and fragmentation – and their relationship to major, unified dynasties in Chinese history;

• Notes the format of the program – a foreigner student asking a Chinese professor – and considers its intended audience;
• Notes how unity contributes to a sense of Chinese exceptionalism – and considers its historical expressions;
• Identifies the program as part of Xi Jinping’s ideological campaign to tell “China’s story well” abroad and to build a “shared community for mankind”, and analyzes the centrality of history in contemporary Chinese nationalism.

• Fails to problematize the meaning of “Chinese” when discussing the unity of Chinese civilization;
• Has little to say about the concept of “civilization” and its usefulness for understanding China;
• Rejects Zhang’s arguments about unity based on simple assertions that certain regions and peoples “have not always been part of China”, without considering his point about differences and diversity;

• Offers little reflection on the relationship between history and nationalism, and the ethics of using the past for present-day politics;
• Overlooks the context of the program, and how it reflects ideological developments in contemporary China under Xi Jinping;
• Overly dismissive about the program as CCP propaganda and its value for understanding ideological developments.