Argument About Sinicization During Qing Period

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Sinicization is one of the most common doubts by historians who study about Qing Dynasty. Question like ‘How did the Manchu who were outnumbered by Han Chinese people managed to conquered and succeeded in ruling China for so long?’ lead one to wonder whether one of the reason for their success is sinicization. This doubt about sinicization has brought two historians to debate and attack each other opinion publicly. According to historian Ping Ti Ho, sinicization is undoubtedly the key to the success of Qing Dynasty but historian Evelyn S.Rawski did not agree about sinicization and argues instead that Qing was quite a multiethnic empire. In Ping Ti Ho 1967 paper, he stated 5 reasons why Qing Dynasty is one of the most important dynasty. In his third reasoning, he stated that “the Ch’ing is without doubt the most successful dynasty of conquest in Chinese history, and the key to its success was the adoption by early Manchu rulers of a policy of systematic sinicization.” ( Ho 1967, 191). Rawski and most Qing scholars agree to the first part of the statement, but not on “the key to its success was the adoption by early Manchu rulers of a policy of systematic sinicization” (Ho 1967, 191). Rawski believes that “the key to Qing success, at least in terms of empire building, lay in its ability to use its cultural links with the non-Han peoples of Inner Asia and to differentiate the administration of the non-Han regions from the administration of the former Ming provinces.” (Rawski 1996, 831). Rawski further presented to us that there is a “separate conquest elite” that is part of the Qing governance(Rawski 1996, 832). The conquest elite was composed by the banner nobles and imperial kinsmen. Banner nobles were composed of Manchu, Mongol and other ethnic groups that were part of the privileged hereditary elite. The banner nobles and conquest elite play quite a big role in
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