The History of Zhonghua minzu
The immediate roots of the Chinese nationality lie in the Qing Empire, a multi-ethnic empire created in the 17th century by the Manchus. Faced with the necessity to legitimize their rule, the Manchus sought to portray themselves as patrons of classical learning and sought to create an identity which was based in these traditions which deemphasized the ethnic differences between the Qing court and the various peoples that they ruled. In this fashion, the Qing court intended and to a large part succeeded in gaining the loyalty of the large Han Chinese gentry, whose cooperation was essential to govern China. The strength of this identity was demonstrated in the course of fighting the Taiping Rebellion in which the gentry largely sided with the Qing court as preservers of Chinese tradition.
In the late 19th century, the identity which the Qing promoted was modified to fit with Western concepts of ethnicity and nationality. Chinese nationalists such as Sun Yat-sen planned to overthrow the Qing Empire and establish a Chinese nation-state modelled closely after Germany and Japan. In the background was a fear that an overly restrictive view of the nation-state would have dissolved the Qing Empire into several different nations, which, it was felt, would give the Western powers an opportunity to dominate China. The unifying and centralizing principles of Japan and Germany were considered examples China should follow, while the ethnically divided Ottoman Empire was seen as an example of what some Chinese nationalists feared.
The term Zhonghua minzu was first used by President Yuan Shikai in 1912, shortly after the overthrow of the Qing Empire and the founding of the Republic of China. Facing the imminent independence of Outer Mongolia from China, Yuan Shikai stated, "Outer Mongolia is part of Zhonghua minzu [the Chinese nation] and has been of one family for centuries" .
Sun Yat-sen also supported Yuan Shikai's viewpoint, and expanded upon its definitions by including all the ethnic groups within China in support of the concept of Five Races Under One Union. He wrote, "Some people say, after the overthrow of the Qing, we do not need nationalism anymore. Those words now are certainly wrong.... Right now we speak of the 'union of five nationalities' (Han, Manchu, Mongol, Hui and Tibetan), but how is it our country only has five nationalities? My stand is that we should incorporate all the peoples within China into one Chinese nation...and develop the Chinese nation into a very civilized nation, only then will we no longer need nationalism."
After the fall of the ROC and the founding of the People's Republic of China, the concept of Zhonghua minzu became influenced by Soviet nationalities policy. Officially, the PRC is a unitary state composed of 56 ethnic groups, of which the Han ethnic group is by far the largest one. The concept of Zhonghua minzu is seen as an all encompassing category comprised of people within the PRC.
This term has continued to be invoked and remains a powerful concept in China into the 21st century. It continues to hold use as the leaders of China need to unify into one political entity a highly diverse set of ethnic and social groups as well as to mobilize the support of overseas Chinese in developing China.
The boundaries of Zhonghua minzu are fuzzy but most Chinese today use the term to include all peoples within the territorial boundaries of China along with overseas Chinese[citation needed] integrated as one national, political, cultural and perhaps even ideological-moral group.
Zhonghua refers to the concept of "Chinese" independently of ethnic concepts such as the Han ethnic group and is the term for "China" used in the formal names for both the People's Republic of China and the Republic of China. Minzu can be translated as either "nation" or "people." Confusion also arises because the term Chinese is often used in Western languages to refer both to Zhonghua minzu and to the Han ethnicity, two concepts which are usually distinct among Chinese speakers. In particular, most Chinese do not argue that ethnic minorities in China are or should be the same as the major Han, but see the concept of Zhonghua minzu as creating a unified national concept that respects the differences within it.
