China and Postcoloniality

Abstract China and, more broadly, the Sinosphere is the gaping blind spot in the study of postcoloniality. Postcolonial theory's concepts are tacitly tied to experiences of Western colonialism in the nineteenth century and onward and their legacies in Asia and Africa, even more specifically, British India, British and French colonialism in the Middle East, the French Maghreb, and the British and French Caribbean. In these sites, colonialism drew in varying degrees on the discourse of the civilizing mission. The Sinosphere is an exemplary site from which to question this inflation of the civilizing mission because the experiences of colonialism and imperialism here predate Western colonialism. With the onset of Western colonialism, the experiences of colonialism became even more complex and multifaceted because they involved multiple and overlapping colonialisms.