Chinese Historians Focus on Borderland ResearchChinese historians are looking to the past to find solutions to modern-day problems in the border areas.A new study on borderlands will take an in-depth look at historic events in those areas, said Ma Dazheng, director of the Research Center for Chinese Borderland History and Geography under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS). The research center formulated a 12-year plan extending from 1990 to 2001, listing Xinjiang Uygur and Tibet autonomous regions, northeast China, Yunnan Province and the Nansha Islands as four key study points, Ma said. Meanwhile, the center organized experts to compile five sets of academic books and journals. A seven-volume General History of Chinese Borderland, with more than six million Chinese characters, will be published in the next couple of years. The center, established in 1983, remains the only research body on borderland history in the People's Republic. Descriptions on borderland history and geography in ancient times can be found in inscriptions on bones and tortoise shells of the Shang Dynasty (16th-11th century B.C.). |
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