Resistance and Reconfiguration: Non-Sinitic Alternatives along the Southern Frontier.

This paper explored the limits of state formation in the Sinitic south through a case study of the Cham state (known in Sinitic texts as Linyi/Lâm Ấp), based in the Thu Bon valley of modern Vietnam. I will first revisit my study of the Jiankang Empire and various models of Sinitic and Buddhist exemplar states in the Sinitic periphery. I will then explore the history of the Cham state, which is unique for its almost wholesale rejection of Sinitic models of statecraft, despite sharing a land border with the major Sinitic empires and maintaining close and continual diplomatic and commercial relations with them. The example of the Cham state can help us to understand the limits of, and the alternatives to, Sinicized political identities on the southern frontier.