Where is Cathay?

Most people would know that the word Cathay, the name of Hong Kong's flagship airline, is the ancient name for China, but very few actually acknowledge that Cathay is an alternative word for Khitay or Qidan (契丹), a name familiar to most Chinese people who have had some basic Chinese history education. The coverage of Khitay was pretty much the entire northern China nowadays, including the present-day capital city of Beijing. Spanning over 200 years, from 916 to 1125 AD, Khitay was known as the Liao (遼) dynasty until it was ultimately defeated by the Mongolians or Jin (金). When the Liao dynasty was a prominent part of Asia, the Europeans and most nations from the west saw Khitay as the most important and dominant center of the east and regarded it as the whole of China. Hence, Khitay almost meant the whole of China to the then-Western world. Even until now, Kitai is still the Russian word for China. (Map on right: Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York)

It is, however, interesting to note that contemporary Chinese history texts often classify Qidan during its 200 years of prime time as a foreign tribe, while considering the Song (宋) dynasty as the true representation of China, which differs from the Western perspective. Despite being acknowledged as the definitive China, the Song dynasty had relatively limited territorial sovereignty. In contrast, the Tang (唐) dynasty, in its most prosperous era, claimed control over a much larger northern boundary, but it did not possess complete sovereignty over the entire territory in a technical sense, either politically infeasible or uninterested in achieving so. In recent years, we have heard so much from official comments that certain geographical regions have been part of China since ancient times (自古以來). The historical truth, however, does not quite support it, or one would need to pinpoint "how ancient" or "since when" the comment refers to. History is not a singular moment, but rather a continuous timeline encompassing countless events, each contributing to the tapestry of our present reality. Every region of China, whether it be the south, north, west, or beyond, can be traced through history to reveal its existence within various contexts—within the realm of sovereign boundaries, under foreign rule, or even as an independent entity with its distinct origins. Our Cantonese region could once have been an unwelcome part of China (南蠻) but could also have been a legitimate part of China for a significantly long period of time and certainly a very important part today. 

May 27, 2024