Source: Court decree of the Lifan Yuan (Office of Border Affairs), Qing Dynasty, mid-18th century.
'The Mongol banners and the Muslim regions of Xinjiang are now incorporated into our empire. In administering these outer domains, we must respect their local customs, laws, and religious practices. We shall appoint local elites, such as the Begs and Mongol princes, to govern their own people under the supervision of our military governors. Let it be decreed that Han Chinese merchants and settlers are strictly forbidden from entering or settling in these territories, so that the martial character of the indigenous populations is preserved and our banner troops are not distracted by agricultural pursuits.'
The administrative policies described in the passage are best understood in the context of land-based imperial expansion. Which of the following best describes a key contrast between the Qing administrative strategy depicted here and contemporary Russian administrative policies in Siberia?
- Russia promoted the migration of Russian agricultural settlers and cultural integration through Orthodox Christian missions, whereas the Qing restricted Han Chinese settlement to preserve the distinct military and social structures of their frontier provinces.Answer
- BRussia completely dismantled all indigenous Siberian administrative and tribute systems to establish direct bureaucratic rule, whereas the Qing governed their new territories by directly adopting the centralized administrative apparatus of the Mongol Empire.
- CThe Qing restricted migration due to Neo-Confucian metaphysical doctrines that forbade physical movement outside ancestral lands, whereas Russia was motivated by Western European Enlightenment ideals of universal human mobility.
- DRussia relied exclusively on maritime commercial networks to extract resources from its Siberian territories, whereas the Qing Empire relied entirely on overland trade routes to integrate Central Asia.