ARI Working Paper Series

This chapter revisits the ‘The Nanzhao as a Tai Kingdom’ argument, and examines the Chinese scholars’ refutation in the 1980s in the light of Chinese narration of the Nanzhao history. It argues that the ‘Nanzhao as a Tai Kingdom’ argument should not be understood in terms of nationalist contestation, but in the role that history plays in China’s nation-building. The Nanzhao Kingdom has to be represented by Chinese historians as the peripheral people loyal to Chinese civilisational centre and are longing for national unity. Therefore, writing Nanzhao history is like presenting an inalienable possession: it is a giving-while-keeping gift intended to sustain the hierarchical scheme of the centricity of China’s empire as a civilisation.