The Making of the Chinese State: Ethnicity and Expansion on the Ming BorderlandsLeo Shin traces the roots of China's modern ethnic configurations to the Ming dynasty (1368 1644). Challenging the traditional view that China's expansion was primarily an exercise of incorporation and assimilation, Shin argues that as the center extended its reach to the wild and inaccessible south, the political interests of the state, the economic needs of the settlers, and the imaginations of the cultural elites all facilitated the demarcation and