History of Qing (People's Republic)
The project has involved the work of hundreds of scholars and specialists under the supervision of the National Qing History Compilation Committee, chaired since its founding by leading historian Dai Yi (1926–2024).
Purportedly, this was due in large part to official discontent with the narrative presented by the draft, linked to long-standing opposition from the government regarding the so-called New Qing History school.
[2] With the rejection, rumours began to surface that progress on the history had been indefinitely halted, after decades of work and billions of yuan had been spent on the project.
[8] After the Civil War ended in 1949 with the victory of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the proclamation of the People's Republic of China, politician Dong Biwu submitted a proposal to resume drafting a Qing history, but the newly established government lacked sufficient resources to pursue the project at the time.
[10] At the beginning of the 1980s, a letter was written to Deng Xiaoping that suggested the compilation effort be renewed, which he then forwarded to the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS)—but amid the slate of reforms during the Boluan Fanzheng period, this initiative was once again shelved.
In August 2002, the CCP's Central Committee and State Council finally approved the research proposal to compile an official history of the Qing, and charged the Ministry of Culture to coordinate the project.
[13] On 12 December that year, the National Qing History Compilation Committee (国家清史编纂委员会; Guójiā qīngshǐ biānzuǎn wěiyuánhuì) was formally established, with Dai appointed as its director.
[23][24] From the Republican era onward, there has been consistent scholarly criticism of the notion of compiling an official Qing history in the pre-republican historiographical tradition.
[28] In a 1998 response to a speech Rawski made as President of the Association for Asian Studies—a position he had himself held during the 1970s—Ho laid out one of his points of emphasis as such: Although the way in which great European sinologists and philologists generalized about the inevitability of the sinicization of China's alien conquerors may appear a bit simplistic today, there can be no gainsaying their general assessment of the basic strength of Chinese civilization, in terms of level of achievement and richness of content, vis-a-vis others in the Eastern and Northeastern Asian world in historic times.
[29]In addition, critique of NQH scholarship by domestic commentators is often rooted in an association with the propaganda efforts undertaken by the Japanese Empire in the early 20th century.
Imperial Japanese propaganda often emphasized a distinction between "China proper" and "Manchuria", a term that only became widespread in English after its adaptation from Japanese-language publications.
[30][31] This propaganda effort was instrumental in the prelude to the Japanese invasion of Manchuria and subsequent establishment of the puppet state of Manchukuo in northeastern China.
[32][33] While the strongest resistance to the phenomenon has come from within China and Taiwan, many domestic scholars, such as Ding Yizhuang [zh], are sceptical of the rejection of NQH, and many defend or consider themselves party to the movement and its scholarship.
Wu Guo notes the role NQH has played in the project's "attention [paid] to the multi-ethnic character of the Qing as a conquest dynasty, its territorial expansion, as well as the importance of the Manchu-language sources.
Following the 2023 review failure, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has requested historians make changes to the tome to better align with Xi Jinping's vision for the future.
