Bin Chen, "Hui Muslims in the Shaping of Modern China: Education, Frontier Politics, and Nation-State" (Routledge, 2025)

Feb 16, 2026

Bin Chen, assistant professor of modern Chinese history who studies China’s modern transition and Islam in China. He discusses Muslim teachers' schools, why the Nationalist state tolerated and used them in the northwest, shifting frontier politics and wartime relocations. He also explores Hui identity’s flexibility, the 1933 regulation puzzle, and long-term legacies like Arabic training and diplomacy.

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INSIGHT

Selective Law Enforcement For Frontier Gain

The 1933 Teachers' Schools Regulation banned private teachers' schools but was selectively unenforced for Muslim institutions.
The nationalist state tolerated this violation to leverage Muslim schools as tools to project influence in the northwestern frontier.

ANECDOTE

Bold Petition From Tang Ke San

Tang Ke San boldly petitioned the government in 1935 admitting his school was illegal while asking for funding.
This candid appeal succeeded because the state valued the school's frontier role more than strict legal compliance.

INSIGHT

Warlord Patronage As A State Proxy

Ma Fuxiang acted as a political bridge between Nanjing and the northwestern frontier by patronizing Chengda school.
The school trained modern teachers who could transmit state modernizing projects into Muslim-dominated regions.

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Chen examines the Chinese Nationalist government's distinctive support for private Muslim teachers schools between the 1920s and 1940s, and explores the complex relationship between these institutions and the Chinese state during the Republican period.

In 1933, the government issued the Teachers Schools Regulations, mandating that all teachers schools be state-run. However, the Nationalists viewed private Muslim teachers schools as valuable allies in their efforts to assert influence in China’s Muslim-dominated northwestern frontier region and deliberately refrained from enforcing the 1933 Teachers Schools Regulations on them. Instead, the government applied the 1933 Amended Private Schools Regulations, which did not specifically address teachers schools, to govern Muslim teachers schools. By charting the evolving dynamics between the Nationalist state and Chinese Hui Muslims, Hui Muslims in the Shaping of Modern China: Education, Frontier Politics, and Nation-State (Routledge, 2025) reevaluates the Hui Muslims’ role in shaping modern China.

Offering crucial context on the role of Islam in modern China, this book is a valuable resource for scholars and students of Chinese history, as well as for policymakers and journalists interested in religion in China.

Bin Chen is Assistant Professor at Hong Kong Polytechnic University. He received his PhD from Pennsylvania State University, and his research interests include China’s modern transition and Islam in China. His publications have appeared in The Journal of Asian Studies, Journal of Modern Chinese History, International Journal of Asian Studies, and others.

Yadong Li is an anthropologist-in-training. He is a PhD candidate of Socio-cultural Anthropology at Tulane University. More details about his scholarship and research interests can be found here.

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