Dissertation Title
The Mongolian Ideal of “All Under Heaven”: Building a Multiethnic and Great Unified State in North China, 1100–1400
Chair: Shana J. Brown
(Proposal Defended: November 2024)
Dissertation Abstract: The dissertation traces the institutionalization of a unified and multi-ethnic state to the Jin-Yuan transition and argues that this political formula provided an intellectual base and political experience that shaped the domestic and foreign affairs of pre-modern China. The resulting imperial model persisted from the Jin-Yuan transition period until the end of the Qing Dynasty, and its influence can still be felt in contemporary China. The external shocks from Inner Asian polities such as the Jurchens and Mongols could not be the sole factor explaining China’s development trajectory. Factors such as intellectual and knowledge exchanges and the institutional heritages of multiple cultures and ethnic groups jointly shaped the development direction of the unified multi-ethnic state that emerged after the Yuan Dynasty’s reunification. By combining Sinological and Tibetological methods, the dissertation outlines a “Confucianism-Buddhism Model” that late imperial China deployed to build a unified, multi-ethnic state in East and Inner Asia. While Neo-Confucianism aided imperial dynasties in achieving unification along a north-south axis in traditional Han territory, east-west unification was attributable largely to Buddhism, particularly Tibetan Buddhism. Ultimately, this interior historical logic within late imperial development continues to exert a profound impact on contemporary Chinese modernity and its modernization process.