From the General Intellectual History to the Intellectual History of Borderland

Since the history of Chinese thought became the modern continuation and modern interpretation of ancient thinking, it has become the main frame of our understanding of China in the continuous development, and then formed the overall national temperament and identity of the era of the nation-state on the basis of the comparison of thoughts and civilizations. This basic characteristic of the history of Chinese thought constitutes the general type of our cognitive level and has undergone a modern transformation process. How can we in contemporary universal structure of the nation-state to understand the generation of the logic of “the land under heaven” (天下), how to cognitive the whole order of ancient China’s land, sea and its internal relations of epicontinental structure, thus a more comprehensive understanding of the “domain” space and interactive relationship, finally understand the United Ring of China’s territory and ethnic groups from the angle of structural dynamics, as we are looking for the key to new holistic narration about China. By understanding the peripheral relationship pattern with the frontier as the object, and then explaining the structural link between it and the inner core region, this framework of the intellectual history of borderland will be able to beyond our existing block cognition of the borderland, thus forming a more universal and explanatory power of China’s internal regional interaction framework and dynamic mechanism.