The first full length treatment of ethnic and national identity in early Twentieth-century China, Leibold traces the political and cultural strategies employed by Han Chinese elites in the process of incorporating, both discursively and physically, the diverse inhabitants of the last Qing dynasty into a new, homogenous national community.

This book provides a detailed study of Sinkiang - China's largest province, and of great strategic importance on the Russian border during the Warlord and Kuomintang Eras. It is written to present an analysis of the internal warlord and Islamic politics of Sinkiang, as well as to take account of 'great power' interests in this region, during a period in which it was essentially a Han Chinese colony in the heart of Central Asia. The study is of relevance not only to the history of twentieth-century China, but also to the politics of Islamic reassertion in Central Asia; to the development of the Soviet Union as an imperial power in the Tsarist Russian mould; to an understanding of the cultural and political aspirations of China's national minorities; and should serve - in a world preoccupied with 'Western' colonialism and imperialism - as a reminder that colonialkin and imperialism was not, and is not, an exclusively European preserve.