Essays on historical development of China

Abstract

In Chapter 1, we propose and test empirically a theory describing the endogenous formation and persistence of mega-states, using China as an example. We suggest that the relative timing of the emergence of agricultural societies, and their distance from each other, sets off a race between their autochthonous state-building projects, which determines their extent and persistence. Using a novel dataset describing the historical presence of Chinese states, prehistoric development, the diffusion of agriculture, and migratory distance across 1*1 degree grid cells in eastern Asia, we find that cells that adopted agriculture earlier and were close to Erlitou -- the earliest political center in eastern Asia -- remained under Chinese control for longer and continue to be a part of China today. By contrast, cells that adopted agriculture early and were located further from Erlitou developed into independent states, as agriculture provided the fertile ground for state-formation, while isolation provided time for them to develop and confront the expanding Chinese empire. Our study sheds important light on why eastern Asia kept reproducing a mega-state in the area that became China and on the determinants of its borders with other states. In chapter 2, we test the “how China became Chinese” hypothesis empirically; this hypothesis states that early food production gives rise to certain political/cultural advantage, which, through migration led to eliminating the languages of the other regions. To test this hypothesis we construct a novel dataset on state antiquity and language distance across 1*1 degree grid cells in eastern Asia. We find that historical “stickiness to China” had a significantly positive effect on reducing the language distance between Mandarin and the local languages spoken at the present time. Using the predicted stickiness to China as instrument variable, we find that a one percent increase in historical stickiness decreases the average language distance of the languages spoken in a cell by 0.23 standard deviations. We then examine the re-settlement of the Han Chinese as the channel for this relationship. Specifically, we show that the three waves of southward migration caused by Sino-nomadic conflicts significantly shaped the linguistic landscape of Southeast China. Later, the Han moved into the peripheral areas in respectively the southwest and northeast, as a result of which the Han-Chinese outnumbered the natives and became the dominant ethnic majority there. By migrating and dominating these regions, the Han-Chinese shaped the “language borders” that lasts to the present day.