The Cartography of National Humiliation and the Emergence of China's Geobody

Like a debutante on the world stage, China has been modeling national images for its ongoing coming-out party. After decades of revolutionary diplomacy that challenged the international system, since the 1990s the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has worked hard to ease the concerns of countries that used to be targets of its revolutionary activities. China as a “peacefully rising” great power that aims to create a “harmonious world” is Beijing’s latest narrative that seeks to present the PRC to the world as a cuddly panda rather than a ravenous dragon. Maps are an important part of the continual self-crafting of any nation’s image. As the Chinese maps examined here will show, the very material borders between foreign and domestic space are the outgrowth of the symbolic workings of historical geography and the conventions of Chinese cartography. These maps do much more than celebrate the extent of Chinese sovereignty; they also mourn the loss of national territories through a cartography of national humiliation. In this way, the messy geopolitics of disputed borders is informed by the contingent biopolitics of identity practices.