While orthodox historians tend to emphasize the power of the Han people to "sinicize" their conquerors in their thought and institutions, a handful of American scholars began to learn Manchu in the 1980s and early 1990s and took advantage of archival holdings in this and other non-Chinese languages that had long been held in Taipei and Beijing but had previously attracted little scholarly attention to gain new insight onto the Qing as a state founded by a people who did not initially see themselves as "Chinese" and were originally perceived by Han elites as "barbarians".
This research provided a new, arguably more emic, perspective on Qing rule, which found that the Manchu rulers were savvy in manipulating the image of the dynasty and adjusting their claims to legitimacy differentially according to the expectations of various subject populations.
In 1993, scholars Pamela Kyle Crossley and Evelyn Rawski summarized the arguments for using Manchu-language materials, which they and others had explored in the newly opened archives in Beijing and were beginning to use in their publications.
[17] For better governing his multiethnic empire, for instance, the Kangxi emperor located his summer residence in the Chengde Mountain Resort, north of the Great Wall.
That became the historical core of city of Chengde, which the Qianlong emperor enlarged considerably, including a replica of the Potala Palace in Lhasa.
Similar internalization and skepticism of specific given values were initially experienced by many New Qing historians, who ultimately shared a number of tenets.
Additionally, the claim of Manchu uniqueness was a postmodern intellectual endeavor to pinpoint "difference and heterogeneity in postindustrial Western societies.
"[22] Prominent scholars who have been associated with the New Qing History, including Evelyn Rawski, Mark Elliott, Pamela Kyle Crossley, Laura Hostetler, Peter C. Perdue, Philippe Forêt, Edward Rhoads, and others, despite differing among themselves on important points, represent an "Inner Asian" and "Eurasian" turn.
The most prominent feature of the studies has been characterized by a renewed interest in the Manchus and their relationship to China and Chinese culture, as well as that of other non-Han tribes ruled by Beijing.
[27] Ding Yizhuang and Mark Elliott together pointed out that the most critical academic propositions of the New Qing History are the following:[22] Several important works developed the main ideas of the school, although there are also differences among the scholars in the loose group.
[29] He wrote that it was under the Qing that "China" transformed into a definition of referring to lands where the "state claimed sovereignty", rather than only the territories inhabited by the people of the Central Plains (or the Han Chinese) by the end of the 18th century.
For example, the book Empire at the Margins: Culture, Ethnicity, and Frontier in Early Modern China by Crossley et al explicitly stated that "our first task is to avoid the once common assumptions of 'sinicization', or 'sinification', an established notion already challenged by several case studies and interpretative essays."
For them, the main problem of the narrative of sinicization was the reduction of Chinese history into "assimilation in a single direction" combined with "convergences of and divergences from heterogeneous sources".
In his work China Marches West: The Qing Conquest of Central Euroasia, Peter Perdue offered his rebuttal to Ho’s sinicization thesis by raising two main points, including the separateness of the Manchu elite and Han mass, and the difference and non-uniformity among the subject population.
[32] On the other hand, scholar Yang Nianqun tried to analyze the weaknesses of both the New Qing History and sinicization theory, in the hope to avoid a binary opposition between them.
[33] American historian Richard J. Smith reported that an interpretive "middle ground" had emerged between the views of Rawski and Crossley, on one hand, and Ho and Huang, on the other.
These have led to a number of important concerns, including the definitions of China and Zhongguo, the character of the Qing dynasty, the meaning of imperialism, and assimilation vs acculturation.
Due to its deconstruction of several concepts including the modern Chinese master narrative of nation-building, the debate has thus become somewhat emotional and politicized given China's strong sense of victimization and vulnerability.
He also noted that while it is arguable that "sinicization" is a descriptive term for a historical event that occurs in specific times and settings with various causes, the thesis may not be viewed as a static and unidirectional concept of Chinese ethnogenesis.
[note 1] According to Zhao, the Qing emperors accepted their own Chinese identity, but it was not passive assimilation, as they actively changed old China from a Han-centered cultural notion to a multi-ethnic political entity.
[48] Joseph W. Esherick observes that while the Qing Emperors governed frontier non-Han areas in a different, separate system under the Lifan Yuan and kept them separate from Han areas and administration, it was the Manchu Qing Emperors who expanded the definition of Zhongguo (中國) and made it "flexible" by using that term to refer to the entire empire.
He wrote that the Qing rulers' viewpoint was constrained by this inclusive cultural Zhongguo, which had a longer history dating back to the Han dynasty, making it unattainable and reluctant for them to create an independent worldview focused on Inner Asia.
Scholar Guo Chengkang wrote that when the Qing established its control in inland China following the Ming-Qing transition, the emperors inherited all the Ming lands and people, and in the meantime the concept of Zhongguo was also expanded to encompass Inner Asian regions such as Manchuria.
Rather, he used the term "sinicization" in a different sense, in the hope to show how the Manchu regime, instead of the ethnic Manchus, promoted itself as the exclusively civilized Middle Kingdom or Zhongguo.
[8] Early Ming emperors sought to project themselves as "universal rulers" to various peoples such as Central Asian Muslims, Tibetans, and Mongols.
The Yongle Emperor had promoted the idea that he was the earthly manifestation of Manjushri and styled himself the wheel-turning king after the fall of the Mongol-led Yuan dynasty.
"[71] While Li Zhiting represented an older generation of Marxist historians in China, papers by other Chinese scholars like Li Aiyong and Zhang Jian reflected more respected criticisms, using more thorough and careful approaches, such as pointing out the various ways in which the word "sinicization" can be understood, and identifying the limitations of using Manchu ethnicity and language to make an argument against the sinicization thesis.
[69] Zhong Han, a Chinese scholar and researcher of Manchu and early Qing history, argues that the concept of "simultaneous emperorship" is incoherent, and charges the school with putting politics in the way of scholarship.
In support of the latter argument, he follows the school in employing sources in non-Chinese language, but concludes that these affirm the Qing's self-identification with China rather than refute it.