弃边失屏 / Strategic Frontier Abandonment
弃边失屏 / strategic frontier abandonment enters through Hanji 934, where 崔烈 proposes abandoning 凉州 because rebellion and taxation have made it expensive, and 傅燮 answers that the proposal would endanger the state. The concept names the strategic mistake of treating a costly frontier only as a budget drain while ignoring its function as a shield, corridor, and depth layer.
Fu Xie’s argument is geographic and historical rather than only moral. Liangzhou is described as a western gate and major route. If the court withdraws, mounted non-Han forces could take the region, gain horses and space, and return with a larger threat. Fu Xie also invokes earlier Han policy, especially 汉武帝’s Hexi expansion, to argue that the province’s value had already been tested as part of a long anti-Xiongnu security system.
The concept is adjacent to 战略纵深防御 but points in the opposite direction. Strategic depth defense explains how space can buy survival after defeat; strategic frontier abandonment explains how giving up a buffer can destroy that space and move the danger closer to the core.
Key Claims
- A frontier province can be expensive and still be strategically cheaper to hold than to abandon.
- Tax burden and rebellion are real costs, but they do not by themselves settle whether withdrawal reduces danger or compounds it.
- Frontier geography can convert a current local problem into a future core-region threat if enemy forces inherit the corridor, horses, and depth.
- Historical frontier policy matters because earlier investment may define why a region is a shield rather than ordinary marginal land.
- The concept requires source grounding; it should not become a blanket claim that every border must always be held regardless of capacity.