Gong Zizhen, a famous Chinese thinker in the Qing Dynasty, once said, "To understand the Great Dao (i.e., the Way) of a nation, one must first study its history. To destroy a nation, one must first eradicate its history." This means that how the history of a nation is narrated is crucial to the nation's life and death, as well as to shaping the identity of the nation as a community.

It is worth noting that how people narrate the history of a nation is determined by their historical perspective which is the fundamental viewpoint and overall outlook of people on social history, and a part of their worldview. Yet people's view of history often depends on what kind of values and purposes the historians adhere to in interpreting history.

Merits and limitations of conventional Chinese historical narratives

In world history, there were many ancient civilizations among which only the ancient Greeks, Romans, and Chinese developed a historiography closely related to human actions in ancient times. The historical records in ancient Greece were rare. Although a general framework of history did exist, the chronology varied, and it was primarily written by individuals without an overall national historical perspective.

Since ancient times, Chinese civilization has attached great importance to historiography, which is unusual in world history. Historiography thus became the foremost "demonstrative learning" in ancient China. Practices such as "state historiography," "historiography during prosperous eras," and "successive dynasties' retrospectively writing history for previous dynasties" have hereby always been the most prominent characteristics of ancient Chinese historiography.

That's why even the German philosopher Hegel, who once criticized China for lacking "history" from the perspective of Western civilization-centrism, marveled at China's possession of "a history that stretches back at least 5,000 years, connected seamlessly, arranged in order, and supported by evidence. Its records are detailed and accurate, unlike Greek and Roman history, and are more comprehensive and credible. No other country in the world possesses such a continuous and comprehensive ancient history. This empire has always maintained its independence and continues to exist as it did in the past."

Since the establishment of the Great Unity in the Qin (221–206 BC) and Han (206 BC–AD 220) dynasties, regardless of whether the various ethnic groups of the Chinese nation were in times of turmoil or prosperity, they voluntarily placed themselves within the dynastic system and ethical framework. For generations to come, regardless of the changes in dynasties, the writing of historical memories has never stopped.

For example, the Mongol-founded Yuan Dynasty (1206–1368) conquered the Song Dynasty (960–1279) and recorded the history of Song; the Han-founded Ming Dynasty (1368–1644) conquered the Yuan Dynasty and recorded the history of Yuan, acknowledging its legitimacy in China's dynasties; and the Manchu-founded Qing Dynasty (1616–1911) recorded the history of Ming. This tradition of recording the history of preceding dynasties, being one of the most important traditions of Chinese civilization, has also helped the Chinese nation inherit ancient cultural heritage.

Since ancient times, Chinese nation has always attached great importance to historiography. Emperors of each dynasty were enthusiastic about organizing historians to record historical events, thus leaving behind a wealth of historical works. The formation, development, and achievements of Chinese civilization were clearly recorded through various classics and documents, passing down for generations and becoming a shared memory of the Chinese nation.

However, traditional Chinese historical narratives were mainly centered around emperors, primarily reflecting the succession of generations of "emperors, nobles, generals, and ministers" rather than a history centered around the people. Nevertheless, objectively speaking, the voluminous historical classics of China still carry the continuous history of Chinese people's beliefs, cosmology, ethics, values, national models, language, classics, academic traditions, political systems, population, architecture, customs, arts, and so on.

Significance of interpreting Chinese history from a Community perspective

Community is the fundamental form of man's active species life. Throughout human history, communities have been diverse and complex, with various ethnic groups at different levels and types serving as specific manifestations of communities.

Based on this observation of the historical development of human society, we will find that the evolution of communities is the hidden mainline and inner logic of human social development. The continual advancement from small, lower-level communities to larger scale, higher-level ones is the norm and trend of history. In the context of ethnic groups, this is reflected in the fact that ethnic groups with relatively lower socioeconomic status or cultural development will continually converge towards those with higher socioeconomic status or higher levels of culture in their interactions.

Following this inner logic of human social development, various groups or small communities on the land of China have formed a community with common historical, cultural and political identity, namely, the Chinese nation. With thousands of years of immersion in Chinese culture, they have jointly created the multi-ethnic unified community of the Chinese nation through long-term exchanges, interactions and integration.

Therefore, the Chinese nation is an intrinsic presence, a tangible ethnic identity throughout the 5,000 years' history of Chinese civilization. Its formation and development are the inevitable outcomes of China's historical development, rather than a "figment of imagination" or a "man-made construct" that emerged only in modern times.

However, even though the Chinese nation has a history of several thousand years, the conscious study and documentation of the formation and development of the Chinese nation from a modern perspective of "nation," that is, observing and documenting the history of the unified multi-ethnic nation of China, didn't begin until the early 20th century, just over one hundred years ago.

The driving force behind this cultural phenomenon initially originated from the introduction of the concept "nationalism" in the eastward spread of Western learning, or in other words, the localization of the concept "nation-state" in China. This marks an important step toward the Chinese nation's self-awareness and a concerted effort of China's progressive intellectuals to transform Chinese society with new thoughts and culture in a bid to save the nation. The term "Chinese nation" (中华民族, Zhonghua Minzu in pinyin) was coined by Liang Qichao. He said, "Nationalists uphold the fairest and most righteous ideal in the world, ensuring that other ethnic groups do not encroach on our freedom, and we do not encroach on theirs. This ideology highlights the independence of individuals within our nation and advocates for the independence of nations on a global scale." He thus reminded the Chinese people that the only way to save China was to build a nationalist state. Liang Qichao was also the first person to systematically observe and write Chinese history from the modern nationalist perspective.

Subsequently, Marxism and Western ethnology, both categorized as "Western Learning," began to spread in China. Progressive Chinese intellectuals' application and adaptation of the Marxist national perspective, historical perspective, and Western ethnological theories have also served as important driving forces behind this cultural phenomenon.

To sum up, the historical perspectives relied upon and presented by Chinese scholars in their study and writing of the history of the Chinese nation and Chinese ethnicities have not remained the same as those applied in ancient times.

What's more, since the end of the 19th century, missionaries from Europe and overseas researchers of Chinese history have also begun to study and interpret Chinese history from the modern sense of "nation." Their narratives also present different historical perspectives.

Different standpoints, different historical perspectives

Objectively speaking, the majority of the historical perspectives that have emerged in China since the 20th century have reflected neither the historical facts nor the historical trend of ethnic exchange, interaction, and integration within the Chinese nation.

The Twenty-Four Histories are representative documents of traditional Chinese historical narrative. Since the early 20th century, many books on Chinese history and the history of the Chinese nation have also been written mainly in accordance with the historical records of the Central Plains dynasties. These historical records habitually regard the successive Central Plains dynasties alone as China, often substituting the history of the Central Plains dynasties for that of the entire China and the Chinese nation, neglecting or belittling the contributions of border regimes set up by various ethnic groups to the unification of the multi-ethnic country as well as to the formation and development of the Chinese nation. They even unwittingly set the Central Plains dynasties against the border regimes established by various ethnic groups.

At the end of the Qing Dynasty, in order to overthrow the corrupt and declining rule of the Manchu rulers, revolutionaries led by Sun Yat-sen utilized Western nationalist ideologies to propose their political goal-driving away the Manchu people and reserving Zhonghua, with Han nationalism at the core of the narrative of Chinese history. The limitation of this historical perspective lies in the fact that it mainly observes and interprets the formation and development of the history of the Chinese nation and the unified multi-ethnic country from the standpoint of the Han ethnicity, thus substituting the broader history of the Chinese nation with the particular history of the Han.

Influenced by this, most of the works written in the academia of late Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China with themes such as "national history in China" and "history of Zhonghua Minzu," as well as the related textbooks compiled by the government of the Republic of China, all have more or less Han-centered undertones and respective problems.

The opposite of Han-centered historical perspective is the perspective of local nationalism. It refers to incorrect or narrow nationalist historical views that exist among some ethnic minorities, originating after the 1911 Revolution (also known as Xinhai Revolution). This perspective generally fails to acknowledge the historical exchange, interaction, and integration among China's various ethnic groups. It views and narrates the history of a certain ethnic group from an isolated perspective, or improperly exaggerates the impact and contributions of a certain ethnic group in Chinese history, even claiming that the history of the ethnic group is longer and more influential than that of the Chinese nation. In extreme cases, it presents the history and culture of this ethnic group as being separate from the Chinese nation, Chinese civilization, and the historical narrative of China as a unified multi-ethnic state, thus lending support to separatism.

In addition, a ridiculous perspective of "fabricated nation" has emerged in recent years. This is reflected in the historical perspective of the "Taiwan nation theory" concocted by the "Taiwan independence" forces and the "Hong Kong nation theory" by the "Hong Kong independence" forces. The former one denies the fact that the people in Taiwan belong to the same Chinese nation as the people on the Chinese mainland, claiming that "the people currently living in Taiwan are a completely separate group unrelated to the people on the Chinese mainland," with the aim of providing legitimacy to the so-called "Taiwan nation-state" sought by the "Taiwan independence" forces. And on the basis of the so-called history of local political and cultural development, and the out-of-context application of relevant international legal discourse on the right to national self-determination, the latter argues that "the people of Hong Kong constitute an independent nation," with the purpose of supporting the attempts of the "Hong Kong independence" forces to seek separation from China.

Obviously, all the above historical perspectives, such as the Central Plains dynasties perspective, the Han-centered perspective, the local nationalism perspective, and the fabricated nation perspective do not conform to the historical facts of the formation and development of the community for the Chinese nation.

To reinterpret China's history on the basis of the concept that the Chinese nation is a community is to go beyond the limitations of the aforementioned historical perspectives, and at the same time, to break away from various historical perspectives dominated by Western centrism and Western nation-state theory. These perspectives all have the following errors: they fail to recognize the principle of equality among all ethnic groups composing the Chinese nation, or the value standpoint that the people are the true creators of history. They also fail to objectively and accurately reflect the process of ethnic exchange, interaction, and integration of the Chinese nation throughout China's thousands of years of history. Moreover, they fail to comprehend the inseparable and mutually supportive relationship between Chinese civilization and the Chinese nation. In the long course of history, the Chinese people on the mainland, in Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan and all the sons and daughters of the Chinese nation have established an inseparable community with a shared future.

The author is Yang Xu'ai, professor at School of Ethnology and Sociology at Minzu University of China

Liu Xian /Editor    Liu Li /Translator

Yang Xinhua /Chief Editor    Ren Qiang /Coordinator

Liu Li /Reviewer

Zhang Weiwei /Copyeditor    Tan Yujie /Image Editor

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