Talk:Zhonghua minzu

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This article doesn't seem NPOV. --Jiang 23:56, 31 Aug 2003 (UTC) --- Did some NPOV work. Removed the characterization of zhonghua minzu as a fiction. 'Zhonghua Minzu' is no more fictitious than most nationalistic concepts (i.e. the American people).

-- Roadrunner 2 Jan 2004

• Translation of 民族. Because 民族 was coined in Japan, which was as you know extremely homogenous, there seems no word in English that is an exact translation of 民族, but "ethnic group" is closest. In the sense of nationality, should be used. But communists prefer 人民 to 國民. That may be the reason why the PRC uses 民族, but I don't know why the ROC also adopts 民族. Anyway minzu means ethnic group.

I'm not so sure that minzu does mean ethnic group. I think a much better translation would be "nationality" which is actually how the People's Daily normally translates it. Also, Japanese meanings for the same set of Chinese characters have completely different connotations. Gaijin vs. wai guo ren for example.

can sb tell me where they ever hear of 國民? is that japanese or sth?--JinFX HuangDi 1698 03:21, 2005 Mar 14 (UTC)

• Fictitiousness of Zhonghua minzu. Nation is more or less fictitious, but Zhonghua minzu is pretty impossible. Say, the Uighurs are mostly caucasian, spoke the Uighur language of the Turkic family, and believe Islam. It's hard to say they belong to the same "ethinic group" with the Han Chinese.

Which is why I don't think that ethnic group is a very accurate way of translating "minzu." A Uighur who is a citizen of Kyghizstan would definitely not be a member of Zhonghua Minzu while someone of English descent living in Hong Kong with a Chinese passport definitely would be. It you translate minzu as nationality, it becomes a lot less odd.

--Nanshu 01:45, 3 Jan 2004 (UTC)

This article started out completely POV, but had the virtue of being direct and forceful, with a certain rough and primitive insight into the nature of things. With the weasly and mealy-mouthed additions from all and sundry, the point has been weakened and diluted, in places by what can only be described as apologism for the ideology of the Chinese government. And it still doesn't give a decent analysis of the roots of the concept! Bathrobe 00:42, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

I have made some changes to the page. The main aim is to clean out some of the waffle and prevarication that had crept in as people tried to "qualify" what others had written. I have also added a reference to the roots of the concept in the Qing dynasty (not "thousands of years of Chinese history") and the competing claims on Genghis Khan. I believe the article is now tighter and clearer, without sacrificing the original point (see the very first version of the article) while retaining the qualifications of later editors. Needless to say, not everyone will agree with the changes, in which case there is a basic Wikipedia principle: Be Bold!

Bathrobe 02:49, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

Contents 1 Zhonghua Minzu is indeed an ethnicity, and this article is hopelessly biased against Han Chinese and PRC 2 Missing the whole overseas Chinese 3 Requested move 3.1 Survey 3.2 Discussion 4 Overseas Chinese

[edit] Zhonghua Minzu is indeed an ethnicity, and this article is hopelessly biased against Han Chinese and PRC

Zhonghua minzu is a supra-ethnic identity (ultimately an ethnicity), not a "civic identity" as the article states. Ethnic divisions by definition are man-made (not biological/genetic nor linguistic) and have cultural, social and political sources of influence. This article makes the faulty assumption that the term "Chinese" refers specifically to either Han Chinese or PRC citizen. It is, in fact, neither. The English language during the Qing Dynasty referred to ethnic Manchurian troops specifically as "Chinese troops" as opposed to "Qing/Ch'ing troops" (political) or "Manchu troops" (purely ethnic). Zhonghua minzu is an ethnic concept ultimately tied to the subjects of the Qing Dynasty. The article also seems to imply incorrectly that the culture, language and social structures of the Han Chinese are homogenous. The concept of Zhonghua minzu developed at the same time as the concept of Han Chinese, not later. Zhonghua minzu is not any more "invented" than Han, Tibetan or Manchurian ethnicities. By giving only examples of foreign controversy, this article is incredibly biased in favor of minority views of mostly overseas independence movements of Tibetans and Mongolians, etc. It has offered no cited evidence of the beliefs of actual Chinese minorities within China. The article also erroneously implies that the non-Han Chinese ethnicities are all somehow diametrically opposed to the views of the Han Chinese on the matter of zhonghua minzu. This is absolute nonsense. For example, Cui Jian the famous Chinese rock musician is of Korean ethnicity (chaoxianzu), but proudly asserts he is also both zhonghua minzu and Chinese citizen (zhongguoren). 128.135.96.188 05:25, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

Do you honestly believe that minority people in China who are not assimilated to mainstream Chinese culture would describe their ethnicity as Zhonghua? Are you aware that Mongolia is already an independent country? Do the people there know that they are ethnic Chinese? - Nat Krause^(Talk!) 05:32, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

Your rhetoric questions are nonsensical and expose your lack of understanding for the ethnic concept of zhonghua minzu and human ethnicities in general. First, an individual may have more than one ethnic identities. An ethnic Portuguese born and raised in Brazil may consider himself both ethnically Portuguese AND Latino. Second, it doesn't matter what ethnic Mongolians in Mongolia think. Ethnic Mongolians in China's Inner Mongolia (Neimonggol) view themselves as zhonghua minzu in addition to being monggolzu and they continue to feel this way even when abroad. The best example is ethnic Koreans from China who go to South Korea. These Korean-Chinese still consider themselves as both zhonghua minzu and chaoxianzu, and are viewed as such by the South Koreans also (the South Koreans call them Joseonjok, distinct from what the South Koreans themselves use). 128.135.96.188 06:02, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

No, that's not what I meant. I never said that you can only be one ethnicity. I'm asking whether unassimilated minority people in China would view themselves as Zhonghua? Why would unassimilated Mongols in Inner Mongolia (a place that is now mostly inhabited by Hans, by the way) be different from Mongols in Mongolia?

My point is that "Zhonghua Minzu" 根本 means "mainstream Chinese culture". If your point is that many minority people in China are well-assimilated to the mainstream, then you are right. - Nat Krause^(Talk!) 06:42, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

The number of unassimilated minorities in China is very low today, and decreasing year by year. By assimilation, I mean speaking Mandarin fluently and sharing identical popular culture with other Chinese populations. You seem to suggest that assimilation requires becoming more Han Chinese? That's unnecessary. Han Chinese itself was a rather arbitrary definition in the first place. A typical ethnic Mongolian living in Neimonggol (in China) is far more similar to the Han Chinese than to his northern neighbors in Mongolia; his Mandarin is likely better than a southern Han Chinese from Guangdong province. This similarity is not entirely political, the remaining social and cultural elements of this similarity makes the supra-ethnic concept of zhonghua minzu relevant. That's the reality on the ground and why this article fails miserably to convey this point. My point is, regardless of whether the 19th century intellectuals were justified or not (this question should not dominate this article anyway), zhonghua minzu today is a clear ethnic reality. The one possibly arguable exception is the Tibetans in China, but I would wager those ethnic Tibetans who see themselves as not zhonghua minzu are in the minority also, but possibly a larger minority than other ethnic groups in China.

Problem with this article is that it is amplifying a small minority opinion onto entire non-Han Chinese ethnic groups, and deliberately creating an ethnic conflict between Hans and non-Hans where none/little existed before. That is spewing the propaganda of obscure, non-representative foreign-based independence movements (like the Southern Mongolia Movement etc), while completely ignoring the present-day reality and existence of zhonghua minzu on the ground. The reality of zhonghua minzu is what this article should focus primarily on, not its legitimacy. The legitimacy issue can be mentioned briefly in the article, but not from the arse, and certainly should not be the primary focus as it is now. See the Hispanic and Latino articles for additional reference. 67.175.245.110 08:17, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

You still haven't answered my initial question, whether unassimilated minority peoples actually see themselves as Zhonghua (the follow-up question, by the way, is whether the government defines them as Zhonghua). However, you've brought up another interesting point, the claim that "The number of unassimilated minorities in China is very low today, and decreasing year by year." I think "speaking Mandarin fluently and sharing identical popular culture with other Chinese populations" is a fine working definition of assimilation. What is your evidence for this claim? I don't really know if it's true one way or the other, but you seem to think you know. I have no trouble believing that essentially all of the Huis and Manchus, and very likely most of the Zhuangs, are thoroughly assimilated by now. Most of the other minority groups are fairly small in number and I don't know much about them. To claim that there aren't significant numbers of unassimilated minority people in Tibet and Xinjiang strains credulity.

There are huge numbers of Han Chinese who can't speak Mandarin fluently. As far as popular culture, I'm not sure what you are refering to here. I don't think your question makes any sense, isn't I don't see an "idealized Chinese" that people are expected to assimilate to. As far as whether, ethnic minorities in China think of themselves as part of Zhonghua minzu, I'd expect that that depends on the minority, ir even the individual you are talking to.

Roadrunner 22:55, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Well, for the rcecord, "speaking Mandarin fluently and sharing identical popular culture with other Chinese populations" was the anon's suggested criterion, not mine, and I was a bit hasty in endorsing it. Still, he's on to something when referring to the use of Chinese ... although there's no reason to limit it to Mandarin. Surely, speaking some Chinese dialect is a key element of mainstream Chinese culture, as is the use of written Chinese among the literate part of the population.

You write, "As far as whether, ethnic minorities in China think of themselves as part of Zhonghua minzu, I'd expect that that depends on the minority, ir even the individual you are talking to", but this seems like a non-response. One could say the same of tribes in Nambia: "Whether or not they consider themselves to be Zhonghua minzu depends on the ethnic group and on the individual." We, so far, lack any real information about how minority peoples in China view the concept of Zhonghua minzu, and this is a crucial shortcoming. Even a dose of plausible speculation would serve to illuminate the matter a bit.—Nat Krause^(Talk!) 04:56, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

The trouble with "plausible speculation" is that it could be wrong. There's too much speculation in the world, and too little fact. There have been rather large numbers of studies on how ethnic minorities in China view themselves, and the short answer is that there isn't a single rule, and it is complex.

Roadrunner 16:23, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

---

Whether or not Zhonghua Minzu is real depends on how you define Zhonghua Minzu. The question of whether unassimilated minority people are Zhonghua Minzu might not matter at all today, but it can make a big difference in how you look at history. For instance, there is no sense in which Genghis Khan was actually Chinese, but Chinese people think he was. So, if the definition of Zhonghua Minzu includes Genghis Khan, etc., then, no, Zhonghua Minzu is not real. If the definition of Zhonghua Minzu is just "mainstream Chinese culture", then it definitely is real.

You are implying a very, very restrictive definition of "Chinese." "Genghis Khan" was "Chinese" in the same sense that both the Pilgrims who settled on Plymouth Rock and the Indians that greated them were American.

Roadrunner 22:55, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

The Wampanoag and other indigenous people of Plymouth area were certainly not American in the normal sense of the word. It seems to me a bit insulting, in fact, to imply that they were, just as it would be if someone suggested that the Byzantine Empire was Turkish. When you look at it from that perspective, I suppose Genghis Khan was indeed Chinese to the same extent that the Wampanoag were American: neither was either.—Nat Krause^(Talk!) 04:56, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

It's even more insulting to argue that the indigenous people of Plymouth were not Americans if you argue that the Pilgrims were. If you make that assertion that causes even more problems in classification. And it's not *certain*. Most US history books list Native Americans as the first Americans. If you don't think so, that's fine, but yours is not a universal opinion among Americans (not to say that there is anything wrong with being a minority).

Bottom line: You are using classifications, concepts, and definitions that most Chinese people don't accept. If you want to write that so-and-so thinks that these classifications or definitions are invalid, that's fine. If the article gets changed to imply that those classifications and definitions *are* invalid, then we have problems since I don't think they are, and my opinion on this isn't any better or worse than yours.

Roadrunner 16:23, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

---

I'm not sure what you mean by, "You seem to suggest that assimilation requires becoming more Han Chinese? That's unnecessary." Didn't we just say that to be assimilated means that one speaks fluent Chinese, which is, after all, Hànyŭ, the Han language? Would you deny that mainstream Chinese culture is essentially a creation of the Hans? As far as I can tell, Zhonghua Minzu (if it means anything) means basically the same thing as Han. Based on the way Chinese people use the term, I get the impression that Han is seen as more of a racial category that you are born into, while Zhonghua (although people don't seem to talk about that much at all apart from singing the national anthem) is perhaps a culture which can be assimilated to.

Anyway I agree that the article as it stands is not NPOV. What exactly do you propose to change, though? - Nat Krause^(Talk!) 20:57, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

BTW, I don't have any objections presenting alternate models of ethnicity. I do have a lot of problems with people trying to impose one model of ethnicity as the only one. The idea of "zhonghua minzu" has internal inconsistencies, flaws, and inaccuracies, but that true for *all* ideas of ethnicities and nationalities.

It's true that all concepts of ethnicity are nuanced and have boundaries that are hard to define in some cases. I'm not sure I can agree that this means they are all really flawed or inaccurate. One can find some ethnic groups that are generally quite homogenous and have clean boundaries, such as the Japanese, although this is not always so 100% cut-and-dried as is popularly believed. From there stretches a continuum, including cases of, for instance, the English and the Germans, which are potentially controversial and prone to inconsistency. However, if I were to describe an ethnic group to be known as, for example, the Belgio-Bhutanese, which includes both the people of Belgium (Walloons and Flemings) and those of Bhutan, one would have to say that concept is not merely nuanced, or fuzzy, or even inconsistent, but just plain wrong.

It's important in encyclopedias to describe not proscribe. If there are people out there who think of Belgio-Bhutanese as a distinct ethnic group (and it is amazing what sorts of groups are out there), then the role of the encyclopedia is to describe the group. It is fine to say that "X, Y, and Z regard these groups as inconsistent" but it isn't OK to make that statement as a bald fact. Groups appear and disagree over time. Take the group "Asian-American" for example. Roadrunner 16:07, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

I don't think there really is (or should be) such as thing as "mainstream Chinese culture" since China is extremely cultural diverse to have anything mainstream, and cultural and ethnic diversity is a very good thing.

Roadrunner 22:55, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

I would have thought, prior to this point, that the existence of a mainstream Chinese culture was a given. I'm not sure that I really know how to discuss China with soemone who doesn't agree that such a thing exists; it seems like it would become like the unacknowledged 800 lb. gorilla in the room. But, let me just ask, if Zhonghua minzu doesn't refer to "mainstream Chinese culture", what on Earth does it actually mean?—Nat Krause^(Talk!) 04:56, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Part of wikipedia is to learn something new. I'd argue that Chinese people are too diverse to have have anything that would be described as mainstream culture, any more than there would be something called mainstream American culture. This is one of the wonderful things about being Chinese (or American). You have a lot of freedom to be who you want to be without being rejected from the group.

Zhonghua minzu is a concept. Just because it is hard to define and has obviously inconsistency in definition doesn't mean that the concept doesn't exist. Chinese people have nothing in common other than the fact that they think that they have something in common.

Roadrunner 16:07, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Missing the whole overseas Chinese

Missing sections on overseas Chinese. Also I met an ethnolinguist who argued that the whole modern idea of "Chinese" was invented by overseas Chinese in Singapore (which makes a lot of sense to me). I'll add her ideas if I can find a sourced reference to them.

Roadrunner 23:04, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Incidently, this member of "zhonghua minzu" happens to live in Texas, and the issues regarding some of the boundaries of "Zhonghua minzu" seem very similar to the issues regarding the boundaries of the United States and Mexico. As far as I can figure the situation with Tejano and Mexico is very similar to the situation with Inner Mongolians and Sino-Koreans.

One of the reasons I happen to like the concept of "zhonghua minzu" is that it unquestionably includes me even though I have an American passport, was born in West Virginia, and I speak better English than Mandarin. I tend to hate the idea of "mainstream" since I'm clearly not "mainstream", but I've grown to discover that no one else is either.

Roadrunner 23:13, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Overseas Chinese

Zhonghua Minzu only includes those overseas Chinese who have Chinese citizenship. Those who have become citizens of other countries are not considered part of Zhonghua Minzu. Edipedia 18:12, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Edipedia. The (ethnically Han Chinese) citizens of Singapore are not regarded as Zhonghua Minzu. The rationale for 'Zhonghua Minzu' as an 'ethnic group' (or supra-ethnic group) is to tie together the many ethnicities of China. It doesn't (or shouldn't) claim that all overseas Chinese, even those who are citizens of the countries they live in, are 'Zhonghua Minzu'.

In fact, the status and definition of 'overseas Chinese' is pretty central to the whole debate about 'Zhonghua Minzu'.

You will often come across comments like "'Chinese' doesn't just refer to the Han, it includes all the minority ethnic groups of China". This is the classic statement of the doctrine of Zhonghua Minzu. And yet, when discussion of 'Chineseness' turns to the 'overseas Chinese', people betray the shallowness of this kind of claim by automatically assuming that Chinese = Han!

If Han Chinese who emigrated to southeast Asia in the Qing are to be counted as 'Zhonghua Minzu', then what about all the other ethnic minorities who are represented abroad? The subject can be a pretty touchy one! What about Mongolians? Mongolians in Inner Mongolia are called 'Zhonghua Minzu'. What about the ones in the state of Mongolia? Shouldn't they be regarded as 'Overseas Chinese'? What about the Miao (Hmong) in southeast Asia, many of whom emigrated there in comparatively recent times? What about Koreans (Chaoxian-zu 朝鲜族), Vietnamese (Jing-zu 京族), and Russians (Eluosi-zu 俄罗斯族)? These are all a part of the Zhonghua Minzu who are represented by major concentrations of population outside China. In fact, the Chaoxianzu, Jingzu, and Eluosizu are virtually only 'splinters' of these major ethnic groups who happen to live in China, and that is the only rationale for placing them in the Zhonghua Minzu. No one would seriously claim Koreans, Vietnamese, and Russians as 'Zhonghua Minzu'. But if they can't be claimed as Zhonghua Minzu, why should the ethnically Chinese (Han) citizens of Southeast Asia? On the basis that the Han are somehow different from the minorities, therefore the Han overseas can be regarded as Zhonghua Minzu? Whoah!

I suggest that whoever keeps adding 'overseas Chinese' to the definition of Zhonghua Minzu should think again. They don't belong there.

Bathrobe 03:08, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

Surely the point of the article is to describe the actual usage of the term zhonghua minzu, regardless of whether the way people use it is internally consistent. The real question is whether the use of zhonghua minzu to describe overseas Han is widespead, though I don't have any idea how you'd find an answer. --Xiaopo (Talk) 07:25, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

Totally agree. But since Zhonghua Minzu is a politically-charged concept, not simply a popular concept, it's pretty important to get it right. I've never heard Zhonghua Minzu applied to overseas Chinese, at least in an official sense. I wonder why someone wants to keep implying that it is.

Bathrobe 09:05, 2 November 2006 (UTC)