RESEARCH EXPLAINED
Research by Ling-Wei Kung
The question behind the research
A legal term does political work only when people agree—or disagree—about what it means. The article follows British and Qing negotiators as they contested the language of authority over Tibet. Translation was part of the negotiation itself, not a neutral step after policy had been decided.
What to look for in the article
Focusing on British–Qing negotiations concerning Tibet in the early twentieth century, this article examines how “sovereignty,” “suzerainty,” and the Chinese term zhuquan acquired contested meanings through translation. Diplomatic misunderstandings and deliberate choices of terminology shaped negotiations, including the omission of sovereignty and suzerainty from the final 1906 convention. The study follows the interaction of legal concepts, imperial politics, and newspaper circulation to show how international law and China’s changing world order were produced through concrete disputes rather than simply imported as settled Western ideas.
Read the research
This introduction is based on the article below; consult the full text for its evidence and qualifications.
Kung, Ling-Wei. “Translating Sovereignty: Early Twentieth-Century Tibet Conventions between Britain and China.” Revue d’Études Tibétaines 78 (June) (2025): 186–221.
Article summary, contributions and citation