Xiaoyuan Liu is professor of history at Iowa State University, US and has a Zijiang Professorship at East China Normal University. He has worked on the issue of modern China's territories and ethnic frontiers for more than a decade. He is the author of Reins of Liberation: An Entangled History of Mongolian Independence, Chinese Territoriality, and Great Power Hegemony, 1911 - 1950 (Stanford UP, 2006), and Frontier Passages: Ethnopolitics and the Rise of Chinese Communism (Stanford UP, 2004). He is a leading scholar in the field of East Asian international history and a pioneer historian who provides fresh paradigms and opens new grounds.

Preface
List of Maps
Part I        A Territorial Perception of Modern China
Chapter 1    Modern Transformation of Chinese Territoriality
        Territoriality
        Historical China
        Sovereignty
        Transformation
Chapter 2    China's Central Asian Identity
        Chinese Nationalism
        Frontier Nationalism
        Failure of Containment
       
Part II        Chinese Nationalist Experiences
Chapter 3    Resume China's Korean Connection
        Illusive Greatness
        Abortive Partnership
        Elusive Contingencies
Chapter 4    Recast China's Role in Vietnam
         "Big Brother"
        Options
        Drifting
   
Chapter 5    Reassert Chinese Authority in a Frontier
        "Mongolian Question"
        "International Conspiracy"
        "Restoration"
Part III        Chinese Communist Ethnopolitics
Chapter 6    "National Question" with Chinese Characteristics
        Bolshevism in China
        Revolutionary Independence
        Interethnic Contact
        Two Wings of Nationalism
Chapter 7    Solve Rubik's Cube in the Steppes
        Bloc, National, and Ethnic Politics
        National and Frontier Priorities
        Autonomy as Rebellion
Chapter 8    Break the Vicious Circle along the Himalayas
        Reverse a Verdict
        Convert the Dalai Lama
        Reform Tibet, or Not
        "Let Them Go"
Part IV        From World War to Cold War
Chapter 9    The United States and Frontier China
        European and Asian "Minorities"
        "Chinese Unification"
        China's "Three Corners"
        Politics of "Color" and "Shape"
Chapter 10    Mongolia between Beijing and Moscow
        From Party to State
        Old and New "Kitchen"
        American Wedge
        Mongolian Crack
Chapter 11    Cold and Hot Wars along the Himalayas
        Second Cold War Front
        Covert Operations
        From Friends to Foes
        From Comrades to Adversaries
Epilogue    Search for a Frontier Theme 
Bibliography
Index