TheQing dynasty (English:/tʃɪŋ/) was an imperialChinese dynasty ruled by theAisin Gioro clan ofManchu ethnicity. Officially known as the Great Qing, the dynastic empire was also widely known inEnglish asChina and theChinese Empire both during its existence, especially internationally, and after the fall of the dynasty.
| Later Jin | |||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chinese name | |||||||||||||
| Traditional Chinese | 後金國 | ||||||||||||
| Simplified Chinese | 后金国 | ||||||||||||
| Literal meaning | Later Gold State | ||||||||||||
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| Manchu name | |||||||||||||
| Manchu script |  | ||||||||||||
| Romanization | Amaga Aisin Gurun | ||||||||||||
In 1616Nurhaci declared himself the "Bright Khan" of theLater Jin state (Chinese:後金國; pinyin:Hòu Jīn Guó;lit. 'Later Gold State'; Jurchen/Manchu:Amaga Aisin gurun) in honor both of the 12–13th centuryJurchen-ledJin dynasty and of hisAisin Gioro clan (Aisin beingManchu for the Chinese金 (jīn, "gold")).[1] The dynasty became known as theLater Jin dynasty by historians.[2] His sonHong Taiji renamed the dynastyGreat Qing in 1636, sometimes referred to as the Predynastic Qing.[3][4] In 1644 theShunzhi Emperor established the dynastic capital inBeijing and was enthroned in theForbidden City[5] shortly after the fall of theMing dynasty (1368–1644). The Qing dynasty completely conquered the Ming dynasty'srump regimes (collectively known as theSouthern Ming) by 1662.
| Great Qing | |||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chinese name | |||||||||||||
| Traditional Chinese | 大淸 | ||||||||||||
| Simplified Chinese | 大清 | ||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||
| Manchu name | |||||||||||||
| Manchu script | ᡩᠠᡳᠴᡳᠩ ᡤᡠᡵᡠᠨ | ||||||||||||
| Romanization | Daicing Gurun | ||||||||||||
The nameGreat Qing first appeared in 1636. Since there was no official explanation from the Qing government about the origin of the name, there are competing explanations on the meaning ofQīng (lit. "clear" or "pure"). The name may have been selected in reaction to the name of the Ming dynasty (大明 orGreat Ming), whereas the character明 is composed of elements "sun" (日) and "moon" (月), both associated with the fire element of theChinese zodiacal system. The characterQīng (清) is composed of "water" (氵) and "azure" (青), both associated with the water element. This association would justify the Qing conquest as defeat of fire by water. The water imagery of the new name may also have had Buddhist overtones of perspicacity and enlightenment and connections with the BodhisattvaManjusri. Alternatively,Great Qing may come from ancient Chinese textGuanzi, which included clauses like "鏡大清者，視乎大明" and "鑑於大清，視於大明", whereas "Great Qing" (大清) referred to the sky and "Great Ming" (大明) referred to the Sun and Moon, with the sky covering the Sun and Moon.[6] "Qing" is also the name of several rivers in Manchuria, at one of which Nurhaci won a key battle in 1619.[7] Also, in itsManchu pronunciation,Daicing is a nearhomonym with the Mongol worddaicin, meaning "militant" or "warlike".[8]
| Central State | |||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chinese name | |||||||||||||
| Traditional Chinese | 中國 | ||||||||||||
| Simplified Chinese | 中国 | ||||||||||||
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| Manchu name | |||||||||||||
| Manchu script |  | ||||||||||||
| Romanization | Dulimbai Gurun | ||||||||||||
The Qing dynasty was not founded by theHan people, but by the Manchus. Since its time the Qing became widely known internationally in English as "China"[9] or the "Chinese Empire",[10] withChina being the standard English translation ofZhongguo orDulimbai Gurun. They were commonly used in for instance international communications and treaties in addition to English-languagemass media andnewspapers etc. during the Qing period.
While orthodox historians tend to emphasize the power of the Han people to "sinicize" their conquerors in their thought and institutions, scholars of theNew Qing History tend to deconstruct the concept of "sinicization" and attempt to approach the Qing as anInner Asian rather than Chinese empire,[11] arguing that the Qing drew on both Chinese and Inner Asian political traditions.[12] In response, scholar Zhang Jian pointed out the various ways in which the word "sinicization" can be understood.[13] Scholar Yuanchong Wang emphasized that instead of focusing on the Manchu ethnic identity for the concept of "sinicization", he used the term "sinicization" in a different sense, in the hope to show how the Manchu regime, instead of the ethnic Manchus, promoted itself as the exclusively civilizedMiddle Kingdom orZhongguo. He wrote that the Qing's depiction of itself as a Chinese empire was not hindered by the imperial house's Manchu ethnicity, especially after 1644, when the name "Chinese" took on a multiethnic meaning.[14] Scholar Hui Wang noted that the recognition of the Qing dynasty as China by neighbouring dynasties and European states was also accompanied by the Qing's conscious effort to position itself as a Chinese dynasty and to inherit Chinese dynasties' role in the world.[15]
Scholar Zhao Gang pointed out that the Qing emperors accepted their own Chinese identity, but it was not passive assimilation, as they actively changed old China from a Han-centered cultural notion to a multi-ethnic political entity; in other words, Manchu rulers gave a new meaning to the word "China" while becoming Chinese.[16] After conqueringChina proper, the Manchus commonly called their stateZhongguo (Chinese:中國; pinyin:Zhōngguó, lit. "middle state", the name for China), and referred to it asDulimbai Gurun in Manchu (lit. "central state", from ChineseZhongguo). The emperors equated the lands of the Qing state (including present dayNortheast China,Xinjiang,Mongolia,Tibet and other areas) asZhongguo (Dulimbai Gurun) in both the Chinese and Manchu languages, defining China as a multi-ethnic state, and rejecting the idea thatZhongguo only meant Han areas. The Qing emperors proclaimed that both Han and non-Han peoples were part ofZhongguo. They used both "Zhongguo" and "Great Qing" to refer to their state in official documents. "Chinese language" (Dulimbai gurun i bithe) included Chinese, Manchu, and Mongolian languages, and "Chinese people" (Chinese:中國之人; pinyin:Zhōngguó zhī rén; Manchu:Dulimbai gurun i niyalma) referred to all subjects of the empire.[17]
When the Qingconquered Dzungaria in 1759, they proclaimed that the new land was absorbed into "China" (Dulimbai Gurun) in a Manchu-language memorial.[18][19] The Manchu-language version of theConvention of Kyakhta (1768), a treaty with the Russian Empire concerning criminal jurisdiction over bandits, referred to people from the Qing as "people from the Central Kingdom" (Dulimbai gurun i niyalma, i.e. "Chinese people" in Manchu).[20] The Qing also establishedlegations andconsulates known as the "Chinese Legation", "Imperial Consulate of China", "Imperial Chinese Consulate (General)" or similar names invarious countries with diplomatic relations, such as in theUnited Kingdom (orBritish Empire) and theUnited States. Both English and Chinese terms such as "China" and "Zhongguo" were frequently used by Qing consulates and legations there to refer to the Qing state during their diplomatic correspondences with foreign states.[21] The English name "China" was also used domestically by the Qing, such as in its officially released stamps since Qing set up a modern postal system in 1878. Thepostal stamps (known as 大龍郵票 in Chinese) had a design of a large dragon in the centre, surrounded by a boxed frame with a bilingual inscription of "CHINA" (corresponding to the Great Qing Empire in Chinese) and the local denomination "CANDARINS".[22]
By the early 20th century, various textbooks with the names "Chinese geography" (中國地理) and "Chinese history" (中國歷史) as approved by the Qing's Board of Education had emerged for educational purposes. For example, Chinese geography textbooks published in the period gave detailed descriptions of China's regional position and territorial space.[23][24] The Qing dynasty created the firstChinese nationality law in 1909, which defined a Chinese national (Chinese:中國國籍; pinyin:Zhōngguó Guójí) as any person born to a Chinese father. Children born to a Chinese mother inherited her nationality only if the father wasstateless or had unknown nationality status.[25]Jus sanguinis was chosen to define Chinese nationality so that the Qing could counter foreign claims onoverseas Chinese populations and maintain the perpetualallegiance of its subjects living abroad through paternal lineage.[26] A Chinese word calledxuètǒng (血統), which means "bloodline" as a literal translation, is used to explain the descent relationship that would characterize someone as being of Chinese descent, and therefore, eligible under the Qing laws and beyond, for Chinese citizenship.[27]
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The Qing dynasty was founded by theManchu people, aTungusic people who conquered theMing dynasty, and by the 18th century it hadextended its control intoInner Asia. During the Qing period languages likeChinese,Manchu,Mongolian,Tibetan, andTurki (Uyghur) were often used in the Qing realm.
The Qing dynasty was established in Chinese as "Da Qing" (大清, "Great Qing") in 1636, but other Chinese names containing the name "Qing" had appeared in official documents such as treaties, includingDa Qing Guo (大清國, "Great Qing State"),Da Qing Di Guo (大清帝國, "Empire of the Great Qing"), andZhong Hua Da Qing Guo (中華大清國, "Chinese Great Qing State"), in addition to the nameZhongguo (中國, "China"). In the Chinese-language versions of its treaties and its maps of the world, the Qing government used "Great Qing" and "Zhongguo" interchangeably.[71] Instead of the earlier Ming idea of an ethnicHan Chinese state, this new Qing China was a self-consciouslymulti-ethnic state. Han Chinese literati had some time to adapt this, but by the 19th century the notion of China as a multinational state had become the standard terminology for Han Chinese writers.[72]
Apart fromZhongguo, the Qing court routinely used other terms as well in referring to its state in Chinese, such asguochao (國朝, lit. "state dynasty"),wojie(我界, "our territory"), andwochao (我朝) orbenchao (本朝, lit. "our dynasty"). But it treated these titles andZhongguo (China) as interchangeable. For example, the Chinese version of the 1689Treaty of Nerchinsk as inscribed in the border markers usedZhongguo as the state title: "All of the land to the south of the Xing’an mountains and all branches of theHeilong River belong toZhongguo" (China), but in a different version of the same treaty, it was replaced by the term "our territory" (wojie): "All of the land ... belong to our territory" (wojie). The Manchu termDulimbai Gurun is the standard translation for the Chinese termsZhongguo,Zhongyuan, andHua and appeared in official documents produced by the Qing court beginning in 1689, if not earlier.[73]
The Manchu name for the state wasᡩᠠᡳ᠌ᠴᡳᠩ
ᡤᡠᡵᡠᠨ (Daicing Gurun). While the Manchu termᡩᠠᡳ᠌ᠴᡳᠩ (Daicing) sounds like a phonetic rendering of ChineseDà Qīng orDai Ching, may in fact have been derived from a Mongolian word "ᠳᠠᠢᠢᠴᠢᠨ, дайчин" (daicin) that means "warrior".Daicing Gurun may therefore have meant "warrior state", a pun that was only intelligible to Manchu and Mongol people. In the later part of the dynasty, however, even the Manchus themselves had forgotten this possible meaning.[74] Similar to in the Chinese language,Dulimbai Gurun (the Manchu term for "Zhongguo" or "China") is used alongsideDaicing Gurun to refer to the Qing dynasty during the Qing. From a Manchu perspective, the concept of "China" (Chinese:Zhongguo; Manchu:Dulimbai Gurun) embraced the entire empire, includingManchuria,Mongolia,Xinjiang, andTibet.[75]
In theMongolian language, the state was usually known asᠴᠢᠨ
ᠤᠯᠤᠰ ("Чин Улс" orChin uls, i.e. "Qing state") orᠶᠡᠬᠡ
ᠴᠢᠨ
ᠤᠯᠤᠰ ("Их Чин Улс" orDai Chin uls, i.e. "Great Qing state"), along with other variation terms for the empire like "man-u Dai Chin (uls)" ("Our Great Qing [state]"), "Manj (Chin) uls" (Manchu [Qing] State), "the state of our Manchu Emperor", or "Emperor's state", which were traditionally used by some Mongol subjects under the Qing.[76] On the other hand, unlike in Chinese and Manchu languages, the counterpart in Mongolian language for the name "Zhongguo" or "Dulimbai Gurun" (China) did not appear to be commonly used among Mongol writers in such sense during the Qing period. The traditional Mongolian name for China isᠬᠢᠲᠠᠳ ("Хятад" orKhyatad), which only refers to the areas of native (Han) Chinese.[76] Whereas the counterpart for the name "Zhongguo" or "Dulimbai Gurun" in Mongolian appeared asᠳᠤᠮᠳᠠᠳᠦ
ᠤᠯᠤᠰ (Dumdadu ulus or initiallyDumdadu gürün, literally "central state"), which was used by the Qing government (such as theLifan Yuan,Treaty of Kiakhta in 1727[77] and late Qing textbooks) to refer to the whole empire, including usages like "the Mongolian Kalun of China" (ᠳᠤᠮᠳᠠᠳᠤ
ᠤᠯᠤᠰ
ᠤᠨ
ᠮᠣᠩᠭᠣᠯ
ᠬᠠᠷᠠᠭᠤᠯ,dumdadu ulus un mongγol qaraγul, or initiallydumdadu gürün-ü mongγol qaraγul as appeared in the 1727 Treaty of Kiakhta),[77] when the term "Dumdadu ulus" started to be used among Mongol nobility themselves it seemed to be limited to the area south of theGreat Wall (essentially the same as the word "Khyatad" in meaning[76]), such as in the works of theEight-Banner bannerman Lomi and Injannashi since 1735.[78] Nevertheless, while early Mongol historians presented the idea of the Mongols as a distinct entity under the Qing, in the 19th century Mongol historians began to focus on the entire Qing, of which the Mongols, along with the Manchus, Han Chinese, and Tibetans, were only one part.[76]
In theTibetan language, the Qing dynasty is known asཆིང་རྒྱལ་རབས། (Ching rgyal rabs), and the Qing emperors were referred to as theEmperor of China (or "Chinese Emperor", in Tibetan:རྒྱ་ནག་གོང་མ་,rgya nag gong ma) and "the Great Emperor" (or "GreatEmperor Manjushri", in Tibetan:འཇམ་དབྱངས་གོང་མ་ཆེན་པོ,vjam dbyangs gong ma chen po) during the Qing era.[79][80] For example, in theTreaty of Thapathali of 1856 both Tibetans and Nepalese agreed to "regard the Chinese Emperor as heretofore with respect, in accordance with what has been written".[81][82][83] The traditional Tibetan term for "China",རྒྱ་ནག་ (rgya nag, literally "vast black") was commonly used among Tibetans at the time, which generally referred to the areas of Han Chinese and Manchus in the east, and the term itself did not indicate any specific connection between Tibet and China (proper),[76] even though Tibet wassubordinated to the Qing dynasty since the 18th century. However, the counterpart for the name "Zhongguo" or "Dulimbai Gurun" (i.e. "China" in Chinese and Manchu languages) did appear in the Tibetan language asཡུལ་དབུས། (yul dbus, literally "central land") which was used by Qing rulers likeQianlong Emperor in for example the Tibetan translation of theŚūraṅgama Sūtra he compiled in 1763 and the Tibetan-language inscription of his 1792 articleThe Discourse of Lama to refer to China (in the same sense as the Chinese termZhongguo).[84][85]
In theUyghur language, the Qing dynasty is known asچىڭ سۇلالىسى (Ching sulalisi), and the Qing emperors were referred to as the "Chinese khagan" (Khāqān-i Chīn, "Khagan of China") during the Qing era, where "khāqān" is a Persianized form of the traditional title used by theTurkic peoples to refer to a ruler (similar to Mongolian "Khagan", sometimes also rendered as "Khan"), andChīn is a traditionalTurco-Persian word for China (or the people from the Chinese heartland) and was used by the Turki subjects in Xinjiang (now known as theUyghurs) to refer to the country or area ruled by the Qing emperors during the period.[86] The termsKhiṭāy (a traditional Turki name for China) andBijīn (Beijing) were sometimes also used by the Turki subjects to refer to the Qing dynasty (or China in general) at that time.[87] The name "Chinese khagan" (Khāqān-i Chīn) referring to theEmperor of China as a symbol of power[88] appeared in medievalPersian literature works like the great 11th-century epic poemShahnameh which were circulated widely in Xinjiang, and during the Qing dynasty the Turkic Muslim subjects in Xinjiang (and surrounding Muslim khanates like theKhanate of Kokand) associated the Qing rulers with this name and commonly referred to the Qing emperors as such.[89]
There are alsoderogatory names in some languages (mostly in Chinese and Mongolian) for the Qing, such as Mǎn Qīng (滿清/满清 or манж Чин, lit. "Manchu Qing") and Dá Qīng (韃清/鞑清, lit. "Tartar Qing"), used byanti-Qing revolutionaries in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. On the other hand, before the signing of theSino-Japanese Friendship and Trade Treaty in 1871, the first treaty between Qing China and theEmpire of Japan, Japanese representatives once raised objections to China's use of the term "中國" (Zhongguo) in the treaty (partly in response to China's earlier objections for the term "天皇" (Tennō) orEmperor of Japan to be used in the treaty), declaring that the termZhongguo was "meant to compare with the frontier areas of the country" and insisted that only "Great Qing" be used for the Qing in the Chinese version of the treaty. However, this was firmly rejected by the Qing representatives: "Our country China has been calledZhongguo for a long time since ancient times. We have signed treaties with various countries, and whileGreat Qing did appear in the first lines of such treaties, in the body of the treatiesZhongguo was always being used. There has never been a precedent for changing the country name" (我中華之稱中國，自上古迄今，由來已久。即與各國立約，首書寫大清國字樣，其條款內皆稱中國，從無寫改國號之例). The Chinese representatives believed thatZhongguo (China) as a country name equivalent to "Great Qing" could naturally be used internationally, which could not be changed. In the end, both sides agreed that while in the first lines "Great Qing" would be used, whether the Chinese text in the body of the treaty would use the termZhongguo in the same manner as "Great Qing" would be up to China's discretion.[90][91]
Apart from the English name of "China" or the "Chinese Empire", it is also known in similar names in other western languages such asChine inFrench, "Китай" inRussian, andSinicum Imperium inLatin, which are the standard translations for "China" or "Chinese Empire" in these languages. For example, in the Sino-RussianTreaty of Nerchinsk of 1689, the first international treaty signed by the Qing, the term "Китайский" meaning "Chinese" was used to refer to the Qing side in the Russian version of the treaty,[92] and the term "Imperium Sinicum" meaning "Chinese Empire" was used to refer to the Qing empire in the Latin version of the treaty.[93] Sometimes the names for "Great Qing" also appeared in such treaties. For example, the term "Imperii Tai-tscim" meaning "Empire of the Great Qing" appeared in the first paragraph of the Latin version of theTreaty of Kyakhta (1727) along with "Sinenses" appearing in the body of the treaty meaning "Chinese".[94] In the Qing treaties of the 19th-20th centuries with all European states (other than Russia), only variations of "China" and "Chinese Empire" were indicated.[76] InJapanese-language version of some treaties during the Qing dynasty, theKanji for theQing state (淸國,Shinkoku) was also used,[95] although it is not found in Chinese-language version of treaties during the Qing dynasty (in Chinese version of the treaties the word for Great (大) always appeared before the word for Qing (淸), along with the termZhongguo).
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