"Expel the Barbarians": Impacts of the Late Qing Anti-Manchu Propaganda on China's Frontiers and Peoples

The Qing empire put much effort into maintaining peaceful coexistence between its ethnic groups, but the late Qing revolutionaries’ calls to “expel the Tartars” cancelled out such efforts. The anti-Manchu propaganda was discriminatory against the other non-Han groups, and the subsequent revolution posed threats to not only Manchus but also other ethnic groups. Despite being one of the most-studied historical events in Chinese history, the research about the 1911 Revolution and ethnic relations mainly focuses on the Han or the Manchus. The Chinese government commemorates the event for nation-building and reinterprets the other ethnic groups as members of the Chinese nation who helped fighting against the foreign imperialist powers, ignoring the revolution’s Han-centeredness. The 1911 Revolution, beginning with its well-known slogan, “expel the Tartars,” discriminated against all the non-Han, including not only the Manchus but also other non-Han groups. The revolutionaries otherized non-Han groups such as the Mongols and Tibetans described them as savagely unintelligent and disloyal to the Han. After the revolution broke out, these groups felt terrorized and reacted with counterrevolutionary violence. Several outbreaks of conflicts took place at the frontiers where most non-Han peoples inhabited including Inner Mongolia and Tibet. Examining the extensive historical records about the 1911 Revolution, including the discussions about the non-Han groups and the revolutionary violence, this paper calls attention to the discriminatory discourse of the 1911 Revolution on the non-Han peoples and its long-lasting impacts on the relationship of the Han and the other ethnic groups, demystifying and revealing its racial nature.