Decolonizing or Recolonizing? Chinese Historical Epistemologies in the New Cold War Climate

This article engages in a critical dialogue with the “decolonizing” epistemology that has emerged over the recent three decades in contemporary Chinese historical studies, exemplified by the “Decolonizing Chinese History” roundtable published in The Historical Journal in early 2024. Through theoretical interrogation, the article challenges the epistemological assumptions of this thesis, specifically its approaches of deconstructing, decentering, and decolonizing established narratives of Chinese histories. It argues that these moves often result in new forms of reconstruction, recentering, and even recolonization within its own historical frameworks. By showing the historical inconsistencies and political implications of this unreflective “decolonizing Chinese history” thesis, this article contends that such a thesis is neither epistemologically sustainable nor morally coherent. In this context, this article not only contributes to debates in contemporary Chinese historical studies but also helps to establish more rigorous cognitive grounds for the practices of historical research in general.