Geopolitics in Glass Cases: Nationalist Narratives on Sino–Russian Relations in Chinese Border Museums

Abstract

History museums, their narratives of a nation’s past and their construction of collective memory are important but oft-neglected dimensions in international relations analyses. This article examines three border history museums on the Chinese side of the formerly contested Sino–Russian frontier. It argues that their nationalist representations of Sino–Russian history challenge assessments of the recent level of rapprochement between Moscow and Beijing on the international stage and the robustness of a possible future alliance or semi-alliance. Hence, this article raises the question of the role of historical memory in the evolution of the Sino–Russian partnership since the fall of the USSR.

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Professor Samuel Guex of the University of Geneva for providing the translations of the Korean text in Figure A2. This work was supported by the GenEx Joint Seed Funding 2020, an initiative by the universities of Geneva and Exeter. The research by Yuexin Rachel Lin was conducted during a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Exeter.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 ‘Joint Statement of the Russian Federation and the People’s Republic of China on the International Relations Entering a New Era and the Global Sustainable Development’, 2022, available at: http://en.kremlin.ru/supplement/5770, accessed 3 May 2022.

2 Constitution of the People’s Republic of China, 2004, available at: http://www.npc.gov.cn/zgrdw/englishnpc/Constitution/2007-11/15/content_1372963.htm, accessed 17 September 2020.

3 ‘Regulations on Museums’, 2015, available at: http://gl.sach.gov.cn/#/home/gov-info-disclosure?ID=2770&a=keyWord&b=&legalType=null&displayDateStart=&displayDateEnd=, accessed 17 September 2020.

4 ‘Guanyu quanguo bowuguan, jinianguan mianfei kaifang de tongzhi’, 2020, available at: https://baike.baidu.com/item/关于全国博物馆、纪念馆免费开放的通知/15884818, accessed 17 September 2020.

5 ‘Bowuguan pinggu zanxing biaozhun’, 2012, available at: http://www.chinamuseum.org.cn/plus/view.php?aid=79, accessed 17 September 2020.

6 ‘Heilongjiang Eqiao wenhua wenwuzhan ronghuo quanguo bowuguan shida jingpin zhan youshengjian’, 2018, available at: http://www.hljmuseum.com/system/201805/103254.html, accessed 4 May 2022.

7 ‘Aihui tiaoyue’, 2020, available at: https://baike.baidu.com/item/瑷珲条约/359519?fromtitle=中俄瑷珲条约&fromid=1173227, accessed 17 September 2020; ‘Eguo qinzhan woguo damianji lingtu’, 2020, available at: https://zhongxue.hujiang.com/tiku/p1883427, accessed 17 September 2020.

8 ‘Jingpin jiang’, Chinese Museums Association, available at: https://www.chinamuseum.org.cn/detailss.html?id=22&contentId=109, accessed 4 May 2022.

9 ‘Benguan rongyu’, available at: http://www.aihuihistorymuseum.org.cn/about/honor, accessed 4 May 2022.

10 Translation by Yuexin Rachel Lin.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Iacopo Adda

Iacopo Adda, Global Studies Institute, Université de Genève, 10, rue des Vieux-Grenadiers, 1205 Geneva, Switzerland. Email: [email protected]

Yuexin Rachel Lin

Yuexin Rachel Lin, School of History, University of Leeds, Michael Sadler Building, Leeds, LS2 9JT, UK. Email: [email protected]