ИСТИНА

In borderland studies, including recent publications on Qing China’s Yunnan frontier, and in Southeast Asian studies in general the absence of clearly demarcated boundaries between Southeast Asian polities as well as between Burmese and Chinese empires has been noted repeatedly and attention has been drawn to a vast and politically complex ‘middle ground’ between the two empires. However, little has been done so far to identify how the imperial authorities of Burma and China conceptualized this frontier. Did they indeed had only a vague notion of a part of the territory they officially claimed to control – which might had facilitated entertaining competing claims of suzerainty over Tai polities in the borderlands? Had there been any attempts to define the border by any of the parties? And where did Burmese and Chinese centers of effective political control of the border were located? Building on Chinese and Burmese official documents, private writings, and historical maps, my paper traces the evolution of references to the border in seventeenth and eighteenth century sources. While Burmese references rarely go beyond listings of regions and places claimed by royal court in the north, the diversity of relevant Chinese terms allows reconstructing a complex distribution of spheres of interest and political influence between Burma, Qing China, Tai polities and other local actors. Border passes were built by the Chinese in an attempt to demarcate and defend the border. Later, however, they appear to have been guarded by Burmese rather than Chinese soldiers. Other actual border markers included steles and pillars reputedly set up in 3 AD by Chinese hero Zhuge Liang who was also believed to have once conquered Burma. Such markers rather referred to a cultural frontier and their localization gradually shifted southwards together with the waves of Chinese migration. In conclusion, I analyze the conceptual divergences between historical and contemporary notions of Burma-China border and discuss the extent to which historical notions tended to reveal and/or obscure the practices of borderline and cross-border interactions.