What began as a fringe literary interpretation of an 18th-century classical novel has evolved in recent weeks to become a viral internet topic, known as the “1644 historical perspective”.
Last Wednesday, the Zhejiang provincial propaganda department published an article on its social media account that said the framing of the Manchu invasion and fall of the Ming dynasty as “an interruption of Chinese civilisation” was misleading.
“More concerningly, the so-called 1644 interpretation of history echoes certain overseas narratives aimed at deconstructing China’s historical continuity, providing rhetorical ammunition for arguments that seek to deny the historical legitimacy of China as a unified, multi-ethnic nation.”
The role of the Qing dynasty – which ended with the last emperor’s abdication in 1912 – in shaping the country’s territorial and ethnic framework, as well as solidifying the notion of China as a stable, unified concept, has made its history thorny and politically sensitive.
