In the case of the origin of the Chinese nation, there have been lengthy debates over pluralism versus monism, and debates over theories of indigenous origin versus external migratory origin. As a result, there can be differences between these claims and historical facts. All nations have a set of claims about their origins, and these claims are used to support feelings of national identity. What were the earliest conditions of the peoples living in this territory? This question relates to the origin of the Chinese nation. The Chinese ethnicity formed within this natural framework. With these three significant altitude gradations from West to East, and a span of thirty degrees latitude between North and South, the temperature and humidity disparities naturally created different ecological environments, constituting both severe shackles and rich opportunities for human development. Further East are foothills below 1000 m, and plains below 200 m above sea level. The terrain drops to an altitude of 1000 to 2000 m above sea level at the Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau, The Loess Plateau, and the Inner Mongolia Plateau, between which lie the Tarim and Sichuan Basins. The Qinghai-Tibet Plateau in the West, bordered on the East by the Hengduan Mountains, at an altitude of 4000 m above sea level, is known as the Roof of the World. The region slopes with a high degree of inclination towards the east. While this understanding is outdated, it can be argued that this geographically self-contained land has always been the homeland of the Chinese nation.Įthnic patterns seem to always reflect geographical and ecological structures. They also believed that it was surrounded on all sides by the ocean, so it was called ‘within the four seas’. In the conceptualization of its ancient inhabitants, this region was where humans couldlive, and was the only known piece of land, so it was called ‘the world’. This continent surrounded by natural barriers, the internal structure of which is a complete system, forms a geographical unit.
The Chinese homeland is located in the Eastern part of Asia, in the vast continent bordered on the West by the Pamir Plateau, in the East by the islands of the Pacific, in the North by a large desert, in the Southeast by an ocean, and in the Southwest by a mountain range. The Han ethnicity continued to grow by assimilating elements of other ethnicities, and continued to penetrate into their territories, constituting a connected and cohesive network, laying the foundation for an indivisible unity resulting from the integration of diverse ethnicities within the territory, forming an ethnicity-in-itself with a shared ethnic consciousness, known as the Chinese nation.Įvery nationality’s survival and reproduction occur within a specific homeland. After it had occupied the East Asian plains area, including the middle and lower regions of the Yellow and Yangtze Rivers, it began to be called the ‘Han ethnicity’ by other groups. Beginning with the peoples known as the ‘Huaxia’, the gradual process of integration was like a rolling snowball, absorbing the surrounding ethnicities into a single core. The formation of the multi-ethnic structure of the Chinese nation also has its particular characteristics: its emergence dates back to 3000 years ago, with the integration of several ethnicities in the middle region of the Yellow River. This may also be the process of formation of all of the world’s nations. At the same time, it is also a sort of unity with distinctions resulting from the division and extinction of those ethnicities. Its main aspects are formed by the contact, intermingling, linking, and integration of many dispersed ethnicities. This essay will review the process of formation of the structure of the unified multi-ethnic Chinese nation. But as a national-entity-of-consciousness, it has been shaped by thousands of years of historical process. As a nation-in-itself, the Chinese nation emerged in confrontations between China and Western powers in the last century.
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