Administering the Colonizer

A revisionist history of a unique administrative experiment – theChinese administration of Manchuria’s Russians in the 1920s– that supports a more nuanced view of Chinese nationalism.

A revisionist history of a unique administrative experiment – the Chinese administration of Manchuria’s Russians in the 1920s – that supports a more nuanced view of Chinese nationalism and China’s relationship with minority cultures.

In the 1920s, Westerners viewed Harbin, in North Manchuria, as aworld turned upside down. Located in a former Chinese Eastern Railwayconcession with a significant Russian population, the city and theSpecial District in which it resided were represented as places thathad reversed the “natural” racial hierarchy – a placewhere white was the ruled and not the ruler.

Administering the Colonizer explores how a non-Westernculture dealt with the Western minority under its administration. Itreveals that contrary to observations and ideological and nationalhistories emanating from Moscow and present-day Beijing, republicanChina created policies in a number of areas that not only promoted itsown sovereignty but also protected the Russian minority.

A historical examination of how an ethnic, cultural, and racialmajority coexisted with a minority of a different culture and race, hisbook also restores to history the multiple national influences thathave shaped northern China and Chinese nationalism.