The Chinese Eastern Railroad and the making of Russian imperial orders in the Far East

The Russian Empire's expansion into the Far East at the turn of the twentieth century embraced the project of integrating Russia into the global economy as a modern European "colonial" empire. Signaled by the construction of the Chinese Eastern Railroad across the Chinese territory of Manchuria, this expansionist project promoted the rapid development of both Russian-controlled Manchuria and the Russian territory of the Priamur. But such a strategy also created what many Russians saw as a new problem---the migration of the "yellow race" into the empire's far eastern territories, where Russianness had yet to be asserted. Chinese and Korean migration into the Priamur underpinned the emergence of racialist concerns in Russian frontier policy, and reshaped Russian conceptions of imperial subjecthood regarding non-Russians.; Inflecting Europe-centered conceptions of civilization, both Russian imperial visions and Russian racialist concerns helped to frame Manchuria as a colonial space external to the empire, and construct the adjacent territory of the Priamur as an integral part of the empire. This study begins by charting definitions of Russianness articulated through Russian visions of colonialism and colonization projects for Manchuria from the 1890s onwards. Reflecting conceptions of the boundaries of Russianness, Russian ethnographic discussions questioned the assimilability of non-Russians, and immigration and labor control policies sought to protect the Priamur from Chinese and Koreans, particularly after Russian expansionism took a defensive turn with Russia's defeat in the Russo-Japanese War in 1905.; Focusing on Russian and Chinese interaction in Manchuria, especially in the colonial urban space of Harbin, this study turns to examine the disease control measures enacted by Russian railway administrators and Chinese officials during the 1910 plague epidemic in the region. Russian measures reflected perceptions of the railroad as a means of both mass migration and disease transmission. Shaped by the epistemological framework of European medical science and enlisting the technology provided by the railroad, these measures translated Russian demographic anxieties into new modes of control over Chinese bodies. Chinese measures contested Russian control, but in a way that asserted the hegemonic aspirations of Chinese western-trained professionals regarding a Chinese nation that was yet to be built.