After empire?: Cold War scholarship on Mao’s China

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article examines how Anglophone scholars approached the question of Maoist China’s relationship with empire between 1949 and 1976. My analysis sheds light on three discursive frameworks. First, I discuss scholars that portrayed China as part of a Sino-Soviet empire. Second, I investigate academic studies that argued that the CCP sought to revive China’s old empire with new characteristics. Third, I look at scholarship that depicted the CCP as seeking to create a post-colonial order both at home and abroad. Finally, in the conclusion, I address how these three discursive frameworks continue to circulate in contemporary discourse about Sino-American relations.