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149-712: The Qing dynasty was not founded by the Han people , but by the Manchus. While orthodox historians tend to emphasize the power of the Han people to " sinicize " their conquerors in their thought and institutions, a handful of American scholars began to learn Manchu in the 1980s and early 1990s and took advantage of archival holdings in this and other non-Chinese languages that had long been held in Taipei and Beijing but had previously attracted little scholarly attention to gain new insight onto

298-520: A 1755 pronouncement by the Qianlong Emperor , a Manchu language memorial on the conquest of Dzungaria , and other Qing documents. According to Zhao, the Qing emperors accepted their own Chinese identity, but it was not passive assimilation, as they actively changed old China from a Han-centered cultural notion to a multi-ethnic political entity. In other words, Manchu rulers gave a new meaning to

447-612: A population genetic study, Singapore is "the country with the biggest proportion of Han Chinese" in Southeast Asia. Singapore is the only nation in the world where Overseas Chinese constitute a majority of the population and remain the country's cultural, economic and politically dominant arbiters vis-à-vis their non-Han minority counterparts. Up until the past few decades, overseas Han communities originated predominantly from areas in Eastern and Southeastern China (mainly from

596-466: A "Chinese" face was provided to Han Chinese subjects by the pragmatic Qing emperors, while different ethnic faces were presented to the various non-Han subjects (including Manchus, Mongols and Tibetans) in other regions of their expansive multicultural empire. Nevertheless, he pointed out " China proper " (often designated 内地 meaning "inner territory" in Chinese) refers to the core eighteenth provinces of

745-462: A collection of peoples and deserves comparison with other contemporary empires, whereas traditionalist historians reject the comparison of Imperial China to imperialist powers. Some of the New Qing historians followed Evelyn Rawski calling the Qing "Early Modern," rather than "late imperial," on the grounds that the Manchus created a centralized empire (with a much larger territory and population) that

894-446: A culturally, economically and politically dominant majority vis-à-vis the non-Han minorities throughout most of China's recorded history. Han Chinese are almost the majority in every Chinese province, municipality and autonomous region except for the autonomous regions of Xinjiang (38% or 40% in 2010) and Tibet Autonomous Region (8% in 2014), where Uighurs and Tibetans are the majority, respectively. Han Chinese also constitute

1043-531: A line between Qing dynasty and China. He wrote that it was under the Qing that "China" transformed into a definition of referring to lands where the "state claimed sovereignty", rather than only the territories inhabited by the people of the Central Plains (or the Han Chinese) by the end of the 18th century. Evelyn Rawski also wrote in 2015 that while the term Zhongguo (i.e. China) was "never part of

1192-412: A part of Central Asia by any of its definitions. Inner Asia may be regarded as the western and northern "frontier" of China proper and as being bounded by East Asia proper, which consists of China proper, Japan and Korea. The extent of Inner Asia has been understood differently in different periods. "Inner Asia" is sometimes contrasted to "China proper", that is, the territories originally unified under

1341-445: A professor at Yale Law School specializing in legal history, stated that he had learned the manuscript ultimately failed to pass political review due to being "too influenced by" what has been termed "foreign New Qing History", even while many working on project were vocal opponents of the movement. Due to this, Zhang considered the association made between the project as a whole and New Qing History as being unwarranted. The origins of

1490-443: A question about the relationship between the Qing dynasty and "China" and encouraged studying the concept of "China" during the Qing dynasty, by carefully looking at the Qing archives and original materials in order to see how such concept and terminology were used and understood at that time. This does not contend that the Qing dynasty is not China. The military expansion of frontiers were sometimes expensive and drained resources from

1639-575: A range of definitions and usages. Denis Sinor , for example, used "Inner Asia" in contrast to agricultural civilizations, noting its changing borders, such as when a Roman province was taken by the Huns, areas of North China were occupied by the Mongols , or Anatolia came under Turkish influence , eradicating Hellenistic culture. Scholars or historians of the Qing dynasty , such as those who compiled

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1788-963: A region consisting of West Turkestan , East Turkestan (i.e., Xinjiang), Eastern Iran , Northern Pakistan , Afghanistan, Tibet , Qinghai , Sichuan , Gansu and northwestern Yunnan . The Mongolia and Inner Asia Studies Unit at the University of Cambridge defines Inner Asia as "an area centred on Mongolia and extending across the region of the great steppes to the Himalayas ", including Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, East Turkestan, Tibet, Qinghai, Gansu, Sichuan, Yunnan, Nepal , Sikkim , Bhutan , Inner Mongolia , Liaoning , Jilin , Heilongjiang , Altai , Tuva , Buryatia and Chita . In French , Asie centrale can mean either "Central Asia" or "Inner Asia", while Mongolia and Tibet are grouped as Haute Asie ( lit.   ' Upper Asia ' ). The terms meaning "Inner Asia" in

1937-505: A resemblance to the areas they had left behind in China, regardless of whether they arrived in the north or south of Taiwan. Hoklo immigrants from Quanzhou settled in coastal regions and those from Zhangzhou tended to gather on inland plains, while the Hakka inhabited hilly areas. Clashes and tensions between the two groups over land, water, ethno-racial, and cultural differences led to

2086-429: A rich history that spans thousands of years, with their historical roots dating back to the days of ancient China . Throughout Han history, China has been governed by dynasties , with periods during which it has seen cycles of expansion, contraction, unity, and fragmentation. Due to the overwhelming numerical and cultural dominance of Han culture in China, most of the written history of China can be read as "a history of

2235-473: A very important part, of a much wider empire that extended into the Inner Asian territories of Mongolia , Tibet , Manchuria and Xinjiang , as they argued that the Qing drew on both Chinese and Inner Asian political traditions, and that the Qing took difference for granted and used different methods of rule for different groups of subjects. Meanwhile, according to Mark Elliott , a prominent scholar of

2384-622: Is Manchu Studies, and the other is the study of the Qing as an empire. At the same time, Crossley argued that the label "New Qing History" overlooks the different approaches among the scholars involved. For example, Evelyn Rawski's Re-envisioning the Qing: The Significance of the Qing Period in Chinese History in 1996 regarded the Qing as a Manchu empire, with China being only one part. Nevertheless, Crossley sees

2533-648: Is complicated by the absence of contemporary records, the discovery of archaeological sites has enabled a succession of Neolithic cultures to be identified along the Yellow River. Along the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River were the Cishan culture ( c.  6500–5000 BCE ), the Yangshao culture ( c.  5000–3000 BCE ), the Longshan culture ( c.  3000–2000 BCE ) and

2682-416: Is negative. It is that part of the continent of Eurasia that lies beyond the borders of the great sedentary civilizations.... Although the area of Central Eurasia is subject to fluctuations, the general trend is that of diminution. With the territorial growth of the sedentary civilizations, their borderline extends and offers a larger surface on which new layers of barbarians will be deposited. Central Europe

2831-557: Is said to have sent several hundred thousand men and fifteen thousand women to form agricultural and military settlements in Lingnan (present day Guangxi and Guangdong), under the leadership of a general named Zhao Tuo. The famous Han emperor, Han Wu Di, ordered another two hundred thousand men to build ships to attack and colonialize the Lingnan region, thus adding to the population in Guangdong and Guangxi. The first urban conurbations in

2980-570: Is the Xia dynasty (c. 2070–1600 BCE), established by Yu the Great after Emperor Shun abdicated leadership to reward Yu's work in taming the Great Flood . Yu's son, Qi , managed to not only install himself as the next ruler, but also dictated his sons as heirs by default, making the Xia dynasty the first in recorded history where genealogical succession was the norm. The civilizational prosperity of

3129-455: Is the birthplace of Inner Asian studies in the West. Hungarian explorers and scholars of the early 19th century travelled to Inner Asia with an attempt to find their own national origins. Sándor Kőrösi Csoma was the first among these explorers, who became the founder of Tibetology . The Hungarian count Béla Széchenyi led a scientific expedition to Inner Asia in 1877–1880 and subsequently founded

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3278-413: Is to avoid the once common assumptions of 'sinicization', or 'sinification', an established notion already challenged by several case studies and interpretative essays." For them, the main problem of the narrative of sinicization was the reduction of Chinese history into "assimilation in a single direction" combined with "convergences of and divergences from heterogeneous sources". They essentially considered

3427-747: Is traditionally credited to have united with the neighbouring Shennong tribes after defeating their leader, the Yan Emperor , at the Battle of Banquan . The newly merged Yanhuang tribes then combined forces to defeat their common enemy from the east, Chiyou of the Jiuli ( 九黎 ) tribes, at the Battle of Zhuolu and established their cultural dominance in the Central Plain region. To this day, modern Han Chinese refer themselves as " Descendants of Yan and Huang ". Although study of this period of history

3576-633: The An Lu Shan rebellion during the Tang dynasty (755–763 AD), and the Jingkang incident (1127 AD) and Jin-Song wars . These events caused widespread devastation, and even depopulated the north, resulting in the complete social and political breakdown and collapse of central authority in the Central Plains, triggering massive, sustained waves of Han Chinese migration into South China, leading to

3725-609: The Counter-Enlightenment , post-modern discourse, thus resulted in a similar skepticism of one-way and linear cultural assimilation and political unification. Similar internalization and skepticism of specific given values were initially experienced by many New Qing historians, who ultimately shared a number of tenets. Additionally, the claim of Manchu uniqueness was a postmodern intellectual endeavor to pinpoint "difference and heterogeneity in postindustrial Western societies." Prominent scholars who have been associated with

3874-718: The Erlitou culture ( c.  1900–1500 BCE ). These cultures are believed to be related to the origins of the Sino-Tibetan languages and later the Sinitic languages . They were the foundation for the formation of Old Chinese and the founding of the Shang dynasty , China's first confirmed dynasty. Early ancient Chinese history is largely legendary, consisting of mythical tales intertwined with sporadic annals written centuries to millennia later. Sima Qian's Records of

4023-807: The Han people , or simply the Chinese , are an East Asian ethnic group native to Greater China . With a global population of over 1.4 billion, the Han Chinese are the world's largest ethnic group , making up about 17.5% of the global population . The Han Chinese represent 92% of the population in China and 97% of the population in Taiwan . Han Chinese form large diaspora populations throughout Southeast Asia, comprising large minorities in countries such as Thailand, Malaysia, and Indonesia. In Singapore, people of Han Chinese or Chinese descent make up around 75% of

4172-635: The Huaxia that lived along the Guanzhong and Yellow River basins in Northern China. In addition, numerous ethnic groups were assimilated and absorbed by the Han Chinese at various points in China's history. Like many modern ethnic groups, the ethnogenesis of Han Chinese was a lengthy process that involved the expansion of the successive Chinese dynasties and their assimilation of various non-Han ethnic groups that became sinicised over

4321-616: The Hundred Schools of Thought ) and Confucianism , Taoism and Legalism are among the most important surviving philosophies from this era. The chaotic Warring States period of the Eastern Zhou dynasty came to an end with the unification of China by the western state of Qin after its conquest of all other rival states under King Ying Zheng . King Zheng then gave himself a new title " First Emperor of Qin " ( Chinese : 秦始皇帝 ; pinyin : Qín Shǐ Huángdì ), setting

4470-546: The Ming could not have created. Scholars Mark Elliott and Ding Yizhuang pointed out that the most critical academic propositions of the New Qing History are the following: Several important works developed the main ideas of the school, although there are also differences among the scholars in the loose group. Scholar Pamela Kyle Crossley, who is usually listed as a member of the school, observed its two tendencies: one

4619-508: The Ming-Qing transition , the emperors inherited all the Ming lands and people, and in the meantime the concept of Zhongguo was also expanded to encompass Inner Asian regions such as Manchuria . He added that the Qing emperors were able to reinterpret the concept of China by claiming their own Chineseness because Zhongguo was a fluid term. Russian scholar Sergius L. Kuzmin wrote that despite

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4768-723: The New Qing History , often use the term "Inner Asia" when studying Qing interests or reigns outside China proper , although previous Chinese dynasties like the Han dynasty , Tang dynasty and Ming dynasty also expanded their realms and influences into Inner Asia. According to Morris Rossabi , Inner Asia is composed not only of the five Central Asian countries, which includes Turkmenistan , Uzbekistan , Tajikistan , Kyrgyzstan , and Kazakhstan , but also includes Afghanistan , Xinjiang , Mongolia , Manchuria , and parts of Iran . The Committee on Inner Asian and Altaic Studies of Harvard University defines Inner Asia as

4917-569: The Northern and Southern period and was inspired by the Han dynasty , which is considered to be one of the first golden ages in Chinese history . As a unified and cohesive empire that succeeded the short-lived Qin dynasty, Han China established itself as the center of the East Asian geopolitical order at the time, projecting its power and influence unto Asian neighbors. It was comparable with

5066-598: The Pearl River Delta . These mass migrations over the centuries inevitably led to the demographic expansion, economic prosperity, agricultural advancements, and cultural flourishing of Southern China, which remained relatively peaceful unlike its northern counterpart. The vast majority of Han Chinese – over 1.2 billion – live in the People's Republic of China (PRC), where they constitute about 90% of its overall population. Han Chinese in China have been

5215-528: The Qin dynasty with majority Han populations. In 1800, Chinese Inner Asia consisted of four main areas, namely Manchuria (modern Northeast China and Outer Manchuria ), the Mongolian Plateau ( Inner Mongolia and Outer Mongolia ), Xinjiang ( Chinese Turkestan or East Turkestan ), and Tibet . Many of these areas had been only recently conquered by the Qing dynasty of China and, during most of

5364-668: The Uprising of the Five Barbarians triggered the first massive movement of Han Chinese dominated by civilians rather than soldiers to the south, being led principally by the aristocracy and the Jin elite. Thus, Jiangnan, comprising Hangzhou's coastal regions and the Yangtze valley were settled in the 4th century AD by families descended from Chinese nobility. Special " commanderies of immigrants" and "white registers" were created for

5513-594: The Uyghurs ), as " Bogda Khan " or "(Manchu) Emperor" by their Mongol subjects, and as " Emperor of China " (or "Chinese Emperor") and "the Great Emperor" (or "Great Emperor Manjushri ") by their Tibetan subjects, such as in the 1856 Treaty of Thapathali . It is pointed out that Tibetan subjects traditionally regarded the Qing as Chinese, unlike the Yuan which was founded by Mongols. Scholar Yuanchong Wang wrote that

5662-602: The "most compelling case" that New Qing History is also applicable to Chinese Islam. In the journal Chinese Social Sciences Today , an official publication of the state-affiliated Chinese Academy of Social Sciences , Li Zhiting, a scholar working on the National Qing Dynasty Compilation Committee and affiliated with Renmin University of China , charged that "'New Qing History' is academically absurd, and politically does damage to

5811-410: The 1630s at least through to the early 19th century, emperors developed a sense of Manchu identity and used traditional Han Chinese culture and Confucian models to rule the core parts of the empire, while blending with Central Asian models from other ethnic groups across the vast realm. According to some scholars, at the height of their power, the Qing regarded China (proper) as only a part, although

5960-523: The 19th century. She concluded that the archives of Manchu materials were more likely to be complete, as they were less likely to have been raided, weeded or lost. According to Mark Elliot , while the renascence of interest in Manchu studies among historians in the United States was not so much shaped by the inspiration of foreign scholarship, Japanese researchers have been at the forefront of studying

6109-535: The Central Plains by Han Wu Di, was now repopulated by Han Chinese settlers and colonists from the Chinese heartland. The "Eight Great Surnames" were eight noble families who migrated from the Central Plains to Fujian - these were the Hu, He, Qiu, Dan, Zheng, Huang, Chen and Lin clans, who remain there until this very day. In the wake of the An Lushan rebellion , a further wave of Han migrants from northern China headed

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6258-598: The Dugu and Yuwen families. The Sui (581–618) and Tang (618–907) dynasties saw continuing emigration from the Central Plains to the south-eastern coast of what is now China proper, including the provinces of Fujian , Guangdong , and Hainan . This was especially true in the latter part of the Tang era and the Five Dynasties period that followed; the relative stability of the south coast made it an attractive destination for refugees fleeing continual warfare and turmoil in

6407-672: The Grand Historian recorded a period following the Battle of Zhuolu, during the reign of successive generations of confederate overlords ( Chinese : 共主 ) known as the Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors (c. 2852–2070 BCE), who, allegedly, were elected to power among the tribes. This is a period for which scant reliable archaeological evidence exists – these sovereigns are largely regarded as cultural heroes . The first dynasty to be described in Chinese historical records

6556-465: The Great Qing but also, nearly interchangeably, as China" within a few decades of this development. Instead of the earlier (Ming) idea of an ethnic Han Chinese state, this new Qing China was a "self-consciously multi-ethnic state". Han Chinese scholars had some time to adapt this, but by the 19th century, the notion of China as a multinational state with new, significantly extended borders had become

6705-471: The Han Chinese from Northern China to Southern China, leading to a further increase in the Han Chinese population across southern Chinese provinces. The formation of the Hainanese and Hakka people can be attributed to the chaos of this period. The Mongol conquest of China during the thirteenth century once again caused a surging influx of Northern Han Chinese refugees to move south to settle and develop

6854-487: The Han Chinese population in the south far outstripped that of the Bai Yue. Guangdong and Fujian both experienced a significant influx of Northern Han Chinese settlers, leading many Cantonese, Hokkien and Teochew individuals to identify themselves as Tangren , which has served as a means to assert and acknowledge their ethnic and cultural origin and identity. The Jin–Song Wars caused yet another wave of mass migration of

7003-418: The Han Chinese," hinted and tinged with only passing references to its ethnic non-Han minority counterparts . The prehistory of the Han Chinese is closely intertwined with both archaeology, biology, historical textual records, and mythology. The ethnic stock to which the Han Chinese originally trace their ancestry from were confederations of late Neolithic and early Bronze Age agricultural tribes known as

7152-583: The Han dynasty, ancient Chinese scholars used the term Huaxia ( 華夏 ; 华夏 ; Huáxià ) in texts to describe China proper , while the Chinese populace were referred to as either the 'various Hua' ( 諸華 ; 诸华 ; Zhūhuá ) or 'various Xia' ( 诸夏 ; 諸夏 ; Zhūxià ). This gave rise to two term commonly used nowadays by Overseas Chinese as an ethnic identity for the Chinese diaspora – Huaren ( 華人 ; 华人 ; Huárén ; 'ethnic Chinese people') and Huaqiao ( 华侨 ; 華僑 ; Huáqiáo ; 'the Chinese immigrant'), meaning Overseas Chinese . It has also given rise to

7301-421: The Han people (漢人), where Han Chinese ideals were created, upheld, and practiced in contrast to those of non-Han " barbarians ", whether they were domestic or foreign; the dynastic title “Great Ming” should not be confused with "China", the ethnocultural space. Other scholars pointed out that the Ming dynasty used the term "China" politically to refer to the entire country but culturally to refer to only Han areas of

7450-409: The Han people. The New Qing History inspired scholarly studies on a number of points, including the concept of "China" during the Qing dynasty, and the Inner Asian characteristics of the Han Chinese dynasties like the preceding Ming dynasty , along with other minor points. Scholar Zhao Gang used both Manchu and Han sources to interrogate the relationship between Qing and "China". He pointed out

7599-760: The Kangxi emperor located his summer residence in the Chengde Mountain Resort , north of the Great Wall . That became the historical core of city of Chengde , which the Qianlong emperor enlarged considerably, including a replica of the Potala Palace in Lhasa . In response, Ping-ti Ho published "In Defense of Sinicization: A Rebuttal of Evelyn Rawski's 'Re-envisioning the Qing'". He argued that

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7748-636: The Manchu and Chinese sources for their topics of research." Beatrice Bartlett , a Yale historian who had studied Manchu with Fletcher, reported in an article, 'Books of Revelation', that the archives in Taiwan and Beijing revealed many secrets, which required knowledge of Manchu. The Grand Council of the Yongzheng emperor, for instance, operated only in Manchu until the 1730s, and many other important edicts and memorials did not have Chinese translations. Official use of Manchu, she argued, did not decline during

7897-446: The Manchu elites' rule in China using ethnicity as an analytical framework, contending that although the cultural gap between Manchus and Han Chinese had shrunk, ethnic boundaries still existed and that embracing Chinese institutions did not equate to "becoming Chinese" in a theoretical sense. These scholars tend to use the term "acculturation", which simply means cultural modification and adaptation. Some New Qing historians deconstructed

8046-499: The Manchu referred to all subjects of the Qing empire regardless of ethnicity as "Chinese", and they used the term Zhongguo as a synonym for the entire Qing empire but used "Hanren" to refer only to the core area of the empire, with the entire empire viewed as multiethnic. Scholar Yang Nianquan attempted to interpret the origins of the Zhongguo concept, and contended that the concept had a long history of combining many groups, which

8195-406: The New Qing History and sinicization theory, in the hope to avoid a binary opposition between them. He prefers the term "Hua-ization" to "sinicization" by arguing that it represents a blending process of a diverse ethnic community. American historian Richard J. Smith reported that an interpretive "middle ground" had emerged between the views of Rawski and Crossley, on one hand, and Ho and Huang, on

8344-498: The New Qing History lie in Inner Asian Studies . A Harvard historian, Joseph Fletcher , studied the languages and culture of Central Asia. He was among those to discredit the idea that nearly all Manchu documents were translations from Chinese and that they would add little to the record. He wrote in 1981, "Qing scholars who want to do first-class work in the archives must, from now on, learn Manchu and routinely compare

8493-404: The New Qing History reveals its contributions to the field of China studies, including its generation of debates of the sinicization theory and heated debates about what China ( Zhongguo ) and Chinese ( Zhongguoren ) meant in history. He also noted that while it is arguable that "sinicization" is a descriptive term for a historical event that occurs in specific times and settings with various causes,

8642-411: The New Qing History school, it is not the case that the New Qing History separates the Qing dynasty from China. Instead, the school simply raised a question about the relationship between the Qing dynasty and "China" — with the word "China" in inverted commas because the concept of "China" has been changing, not fixed. The school hoped to understand the concept of "China" during the Qing dynasty, and how it

8791-531: The New Qing History, including Evelyn Rawski , Mark Elliott , Pamela Kyle Crossley , Laura Hostetler , Peter C. Perdue , Philippe Forêt, Edward Rhoads, and others, despite differing among themselves on important points, represent an " Inner Asian " and " Eurasian " turn. The most prominent feature of the studies has been characterized by a renewed interest in the Manchus and their relationship to China and Chinese culture , as well as that of other non-Han tribes ruled by Beijing . In general, New Qing historians date

8940-566: The People's Republic of China and once publicised by the Republic of China, was historicially used specifically to refer to the Han Chinese. In Article Observations on the Chinese ethnic groups in History , Liang Qichao , who coined the term Zhonghua minzu , wrote "the present-day Zhonghua minzu generally refers to what is commonly known as the Han Chinese." It was only after the founding of

9089-502: The Qing as a Manchu dynasty, as well as the territories of Inner Asia , using non-Chinese texts and concentrating on Manchu materials. The New Qing History took on distinct form in the mid-1990s. In 1993, scholars Pamela Kyle Crossley and Evelyn Rawski summarized the arguments for using Manchu-language materials, which they and others had explored in the newly opened archives in Beijing and were beginning to use in their publications. Evelyn Rawski's presidential address, "Re-envisioning

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9238-438: The Qing as a state founded by a people who did not initially see themselves as "Chinese" and were originally perceived by Han elites as " barbarians ". This research provided a new, arguably more emic, perspective on Qing rule, which found that the Manchu rulers were savvy in manipulating the image of the dynasty and adjusting their claims to legitimacy differentially according to the expectations of various subject populations. From

9387-519: The Qing constituted an "empire" and should be examined as such, scholar Wu Qine argued that Chinese traditional imperialism differed from modern Western colonialism. Furthermore, Tibetologist Melvyn Goldstein had used the term "passive hegemony" to describe the relationship between Qing China and Tibet, although he believed it was apparent that the Qing intended to "control" Tibet as a dependency to serve its dynastic goals. The New Qing History, according to Tristan G. Brown, writing in 2011, did not explore

9536-447: The Qing court's creative reinterpretation of the concept of "China" (中國, Zhongguo ) as a composite of Han and non-Han peoples in the empire, and that China proper and Han people (漢人) were not synonymous with "China" ( Zhongguo ) under the Qing view. While earlier Han Chinese dynasties (like the Ming dynasty ) used Zhongguo to refer only to Han areas, the Qing dynasty reinvented the definition of Zhongguo to refer to non-Han areas of

9685-604: The Qing dynasty's usage of the term "China" to refer to the entire empire, empires centered on China (including conquest dynasties like the Yuan and Qing) were known officially by their respective dynastic name (e.g. "Great Yuan" and "Great Qing", respectively). Non-Han peoples considered themselves as subjects of these empires and did not necessarily equate them to "China". This resulted from different ways of their legitimization for different peoples in these dynasties. Qing emperors were referred to as "Khagan of China" (or " Chinese khagan ") by their Turkic Muslim subjects (now known as

9834-416: The Qing dynasty, but from a Manchu perspective, however, the concept of “China” (Chinese: Zhongguo ; Manchu: Dulimbai Gurun ) embraced the entire empire, including Manchuria , Mongolia , Xinjiang , and Tibet . According to Professor Guo Wu, the New Qing History encompasses a number of viewpoints and presumptions influenced by postmodern history. These have led to a number of important concerns, including

9983-422: The Qing dynasty. Early Ming emperors sought to project themselves as " universal rulers " to various peoples such as Central Asian Muslims, Tibetans , and Mongols . The Yongle Emperor cited Emperor Taizong of Tang as a model for being familiar with both China and the steppe people. Like the Qing emperors, the Ming emperors also had an important influence on Tibetan Buddhism . The Yongle Emperor had promoted

10132-414: The Qing emperors replaced the Ming emperors as the incarnation of Manjushri for them. Some scholars have also argued that the Ming regarded "China" ( Zhongguo ) as only a part of the Ming empire and as an ethnocultural space (rather than a political entity), challenging the prevalent perceptions of the Ming. In essence, during the Ming dynasty "China" was defined as the domain of the Han Chinese inhabited by

10281-400: The Qing empire school, which she calls "Qing Studies." Mark Elliott states that while he agrees with such views to some extent, because he thinks it helps to make people more acutely aware that the Qing Empire and the Republic of China (or the People's Republic of China ) are different political entities with different political goals, but he admits that he also worries about drawing too sharp

10430-405: The Qing period, they were governed through administrative structures different from those of the older Chinese provinces. A Qing government agency, the Lifan Yuan , supervised the empire's Inner Asian regions , also known as Chinese Tartary . The frontier regions of China proper— Gansu , Qinghai , Sichuan and Yunnan —are also sometimes included as part of Inner Asia. "Inner Asia" today has

10579-409: The Qing: The Significance of the Qing Period in Chinese History," at the annual meeting of the Association for Asian Studies in 1996, particularly criticized the question of the "sinicization" of the Qing that had been raised by Ping-ti Ho in his 1967 article "The Significance of the Ch'ing Period in Chinese History." Rawski's thought was based on a Manchu-centric concept of history and indicated that

10728-556: The Society for the Great Unity of Zhonghua minzu of the Republic of China in 1912 that the term began to officially include ethnic minorities from all regions in China. Han Chinese can be divided into various subgroups based on the variety of Chinese that they speak. Waves of migration have occurred throughout China's long history and vast geographical expanse, engendering the emergence of Han Chinese subgroups found throughout

10877-521: The Sui and Tang dynasties, led by the Han Chinese families of the Yang (杨) and Li (李) surnames respectively. Both the Sui and Tang dynasties are seen as high points of Han Chinese civilization. These dynasties both emphasized their aristocratic Han Chinese pedigree and enforced the restoration of Central Plains culture, even the founders of both dynasties had already intermarried with non-Han or partly-Han women from

11026-603: The West, and such treaties and documents consistently referred to Qing rulers as the " Emperor of China " and his administration as the "Government of China". Joseph W. Esherick observes that while the Qing Emperors governed frontier non-Han areas in a different, separate system under the Lifan Yuan and kept them separate from Han areas and administration, it was the Manchu Qing Emperors who expanded

11175-557: The Wu and Min varieties of Chinese originate from the way Chinese was spoken during the Jin, while the Yue and Hakka from the way Chinese was spoken in the Tang and Song, about half-a-millenia later. The presence of Tai-Kradai substrates in these dialects may have been due to the assimilation of the remaining groups of Bai Yue, integrating these lands into the Sinosphere proper. The chaos of

11324-517: The Xia dynasty at this time is thought to have given rise to the name "Huaxia" ( simplified Chinese : 华夏 ; traditional Chinese : 華夏 ; pinyin : Huá Xià , "the magnificent Xia"), a term that was used ubiquitously throughout history to define the Chinese nation. Conclusive archaeological evidence predating the 16th century BCE is, however, rarely available. Recent efforts of the Xia–Shang–Zhou Chronology Project drew

11473-600: The ancient Chinese philosopher Confucius 's contemporaries during the Warring States period to elucidate the shared ethnicity of all Chinese; Chinese people called themselves Hua ren . The Warring States period led to the emergence of the Zhou-era Chinese referring to themselves as being Huaxia (literally 'the beautiful grandeur'): under the Hua–Yi distinction , a "Hua" culture (often translated as 'civilized')

11622-487: The centres of Han Chinese culture and wealth moved from the Yellow River Basin to Jiangnan, and to a lesser extent also, to Fujian and Guangdong. At various points in Chinese history, collapses of central authority in the face of barbarian uprisings or invasions and the loss of control of the Chinese heartland triggered mass migratory waves which transformed the demographic composition and cultural identity of

11771-410: The centuries at various points in Chinese history. By the time of the Tang and Song dynasties, Han Chinese were the main inhabitants of the fertile lowland areas and cities of southern China, with minority tribes occupying the highlands. The term "Han" not only refers to a specific ethnic collective, but also points to a shared ancestry, history, and cultural identity . The term "Huaxia" was used by

11920-547: The centuries. During the Western Zhou and Han dynasties, Han Chinese writers established genealogical lineages by drawing from legendary materials originating from the Shang dynasty , while the Han dynasty historian Sima Qian 's Records of the Grand Historian places the reign of the Yellow Emperor , the legendary leader of Youxiong tribes ( 有熊氏 ), at the beginning of Chinese history. The Yellow Emperor

12069-462: The concept of sinicization and approached the Qing as an Inner Asian rather than Chinese empire. They argued that the Qing saw itself as a Manchu or a universal empire, a multi-national polity , which with Han China as only the most central and economically important component, and the multi-faceted Qing ruler presented himself differently to different groups of his subjects. On the other hand, according to Mark Elliott, New Qing historians merely raised

12218-402: The confines of these agricultural settlements and military outposts. The genesis of the modern Han people and their subgroups cannot be understood apart from their historical migrations to the south, resulting in a depopulation of the Central Plains, a fission between those that remained and those that headed south, and their subsequent fusion with aboriginal tribes south of the Yangtze, even as

12367-520: The connection between the Erlitou culture and the Xia dynasty, but scholars could not reach a consensus regarding the reliability of such history. The Xia dynasty was overthrown after the Battle of Mingtiao , around 1600 BCE, by Cheng Tang , who established the Shang dynasty ( c.  1600 –1046 BCE). The earliest archaeological examples of Chinese writing date back to this period – from characters inscribed on oracle bones used for divination – but

12516-417: The contemporary Roman Empire in population size, geographical extent, and cultural reach. The Han dynasty's prestige and prominence led many of the ancient Huaxia to identify themselves as 'Han people'. Similarly, the Chinese language also came to be named and alluded to as the "Han language" ( 漢語 ; 汉语 ; Hànyǔ ) ever since and the Chinese script is referred to as " Han characters ." Prior to

12665-476: The country's population. The Han Chinese have exerted the primary formative influence in shaping the development and growth of Chinese civilization. Originating from the Central Plains , the Han Chinese trace their ancestry to the Huaxia people, a confederation of agricultural tribes that lived along the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River in north central plains of China. The Huaxia are

12814-511: The definition of Zhongguo (中國) and made it "flexible" by using that term to refer to the entire empire. For example, the English version of the 1842 Treaty of Nanking and 1858 Treaty of Tientsin refers to "His Majesty the Emperor of China" while the Chinese refers both to "The Great Qing Emperor" ( Da Qing Huangdi ) and to Zhongguo as well. Similarly, Elena Barabantseva has also noted that

12963-434: The definitions of China and Zhongguo , the character of the Qing dynasty, the meaning of imperialism, and assimilation vs acculturation. Due to its deconstruction of various concepts including the modern Chinese master narrative of nation-building , the debate has thus become somewhat emotional and politicized given China's strong sense of victimization and vulnerability. He argued that a de-politicized and unbiased analysis of

13112-512: The empire as well. Zhao Gang cited Qing documents used the Manchu term "Dulimbai Gurun" (a direct translation of Zhongguo ; "Middle Kingdom") in Manchu texts and Zhongguo in Chinese texts to refer to the entire Qing including Manchuria, Xinjiang, Mongolia, and Tibet as "China", in official documents, edicts, treaties , in texts like the Treaty of Nerchinsk , the Convention of Kyakhta (1768),

13261-522: The empire not as a Manchu empire but as a "simultaneous" system in which the rulership is not subordinate to the Chinese or any other single culture, which she termed "culturally null" in her work A Translucent Mirror: History and Identity in Qing Imperial Ideology . She criticized the new "Manchu-centered" school for romanticism and a reliance upon disproved theories about " Altaic " language and history, but she seems to include herself in

13410-477: The empire. Scholars have disagreed on whether or how much the Manchu rulers used new forms of imperial ritual to display new forms of empire or continued rituals from the Ming to show that they saw themselves as heirs of a Han Chinese empire. Roger Des Forges' review of David M. Robinson 's Martial Spectacles of the Ming Court criticized scholars of conquest dynasties and New Qing History and disagreed with

13559-533: The ensuing civil wars and succeeded in establishing a much longer-lasting dynasty. It continued many of the institutions created by the Qin dynasty, but adopted a more moderate rule. Under the Han dynasty, art and culture flourished, while the Han Empire expanded militarily in all directions . Many Chinese scholars such as Ho Ping-ti believe that the concept ( ethnogenesis ) of Han ethnicity, although being ancient,

13708-517: The etymological origin of the modern English word "China". The reign of the first imperial dynasty was short-lived. Due to the First Emperor's autocratic rule and his massive labor projects, which fomented rebellion among his population, the Qin dynasty fell into chaos soon after his death. Under the corrupt rule of his son and successor Huhai , the Qin dynasty collapsed a mere three years later. The Han dynasty (206 BC–220 CE) then emerged from

13857-422: The example of Islam and Muslims to test their argument that the early Qing emperors aspired to be universal monarchs. Brown finds that an inscription by the Qianlong emperor showed that he wanted to incorporate both Xinjiang and Islam into his empire and that this inscription, along with the "inventive structural duality of Chinese-Islamic architecture with Central Asian Turkish-Islamic architectural forms," makes

14006-474: The far south. At the same time, most of the nomads in northern China came to be sinicized as they ruled over large Chinese populations and adopted elements of their culture and administration. Of note, the Xianbei rulers of Northern Wei ordered a policy of systematic sinicization, adopting Han surnames , institutions, and culture, so the Xianbei became Han Chinese. Sui and Tang Han Chinese rule resumed during

14155-647: The formal name of a Chinese state until the twentieth century", the Manchus who founded the Qing dynasty succeeded in expanding the meaning of Zhongguo (China) to encompass the territories of the Qing empire, thus "creating the foundation for the modern concept". There is a trend of sidestepping the sinicization thesis among New Qing historians. For example, the book Empire at the Margins: Culture, Ethnicity, and Frontier in Early Modern China by Crossley et al explicitly stated that "our first task

14304-825: The formation of distinct Han lineages, who also likely assimilated the by-now partially sinicized Bai Yue in their midst. Modern Han Chinese subgroups, such as the Cantonese , the Hakka , the Henghua , the Hainanese , the Hoklo peoples, the Gan , the Xiang , the Wu-speaking peoples, all claim Han Chinese ancestry pointing to official histories and their own genealogical records to support such claims. Linguists hypothesize that

14453-479: The founding of the empire from 1636, when the dynasty was proclaimed, rather than from 1644, when the Qing took control of the Ming capital Beijing. They argued that "Manchu" identity was deliberately created only after the takeover of China and that the new racial identity was important but " fungible ", easily exchanged for others. The first rulers of the dynasty played the Confucian role of Son of Heaven but at

14602-416: The frontiers. In effect, he established a centralized bureaucratic state to replace the old feudal confederation system of preceding dynasties, making Qin the first imperial dynasty in Chinese history. This dynasty, sometimes phonetically spelt as the "Ch'in dynasty", has been proposed in the 17th century by Martino Martini and supported by later scholars such as Paul Pelliot and Berthold Laufer to be

14751-408: The history of China from an imperialist standpoint, with imperialist points of view and imperialist eyes, regarding 'traditional' China as an 'empire', regarding the Qing dynasty as 'Qing dynasty imperialism'." Zhong Han, a Chinese scholar and researcher of Manchu and early Qing history, argues that the concept of "simultaneous emperorship" is incoherent, and charges the school with putting politics in

14900-609: The idea that he was the earthly manifestation of Manjushri and styled himself the wheel-turning king after the fall of the Mongol-led Yuan dynasty . Some scholars pointed out that even up to the early years of the Shunzhi Emperor , the first Qing emperor to rule over China proper, some non-Han followers of the Tibetan Buddhism still regarded Ming emperors as the incarnation of Manjushri. Only after this

15049-431: The idea that the "Royal hunt" was a differing factor between Han Chinese and non-Han dynasties. He noted that the martial themed Ming dynasty Grand Review was copied by the Qing and disagreed with those who sought to present it as a Qing feature. He praised Robinson in differing from scholars who selected certain Ming and Qing emperors to contrast their difference and for not conflating Han with "Chinese" and not translating

15198-422: The imperial house's Manchu ethnicity, especially after 1644, when the name "Chinese" took on a multiethnic meaning. Scholar Hui Wang noted that the recognization of the Qing dynasty as China by neighbouring dynasties and European states was also accompanied by the Qing's conscious effort to position itself as a Chinese dynasty and to inherit Chinese dynasties' role in the world. Inspired by New Qing History studies,

15347-459: The influence of the new Han migrants. The term is used in everyday colloquial discourse and is also an element in one of the words for Chinatown : 'streets of Tang people' ( 唐人街 ; Tángrénjiē ; Tong4 jan4 gaai1 ). The phrase Huábù ( 華埠 ; 华埠 ) is also used to refer to Chinatowns. The term Zhonghua minzu (中華民族; 中华民族; Zhōnghuámínzú), literally meaning the Chinese nation, currently used as an supra-ethnic concept publicised by

15496-552: The journal Turán in 1913. The term "Inner Asian studies" (Hungarian: belső-ázsiai kutatások ; German: innerasiatische Studien ) first appeared in the masthead of Turán . Aurel Stein 's discoveries of Inner Asian antiquities contributed significantly to the knowledge of the civilizations of this region. In 1928, he published his 4-volume work entitled Innermost Asia: Detailed Report of Explorations in Central Asia, Kan-su and Eastern Iran, Carried Out and Described under

15645-539: The languages of Inner Asia itself are all modern translations of terms in European languages, mostly Russian. " Central Asia " normally denotes the western part of Inner Asia; that is, Kazakhstan , Kyrgyzstan , Tajikistan , Turkmenistan , and Uzbekistan , with Afghanistan sometimes also included as part of Central Asia. However, The Library of Congress subject classification system treats "Central Asia" and Inner Asia as synonymous. According to Morris Rossabi ,

15794-405: The last decade of the dynasty. Meanwhile, Mark Elliott highlighted the significance of both ethnic divergence and acculturation, contending that the Manchu rulers' "acculturation" and "differentiation" were essential to the accomplishment of their prolonged rule of the empire. According to him, although the Manchus were acculturated, they were never fully integrated into Chinese society. He approached

15943-459: The literary name for China – Zhonghua ( 中華 ; 中华 ; Zhōnghuá ; 'Central China'). While the general term Zhongguo ren ( 中國人 ; 中国人 ) refers to any Chinese citizen or Chinese national regardless of their ethnic origins and does not necessary imply Han ancestry, the term huaren in its narrow, classical usages implies Central Plains or Han ancestry. Among some southern Han Chinese varieties such as Cantonese , Hakka and Minnan ,

16092-411: The mainstream explorations of the concept of "sinicization" have much focused on the Manchu ethnic identity. Rather, he used the term "sinicization" in a different sense, in the hope to show how the Manchu regime, instead of the ethnic Manchus, promoted itself as the exclusively civilized Middle Kingdom or Zhongguo . According to him, the Qing's depiction of itself as a Chinese empire was not hindered by

16241-553: The majority in both of the special administrative regions of the PRC – about 92.2% and 88.4% of the population of Hong Kong and Macau , respectively. The Han Chinese in Hong Kong and Macau have been culturally, economically and politically dominant majority vis-à-vis the non-Han minorities. There are over 22 million people of Han Chinese ancestry in living in Taiwan. At first, these migrants chose to settle in locations that bore

16390-602: The massive number of Han Chinese immigrating during this period which included notable families such as the Wang and the Xie. A religious group known as the Celestial Masters contributed to the movement. Jiangnan became the most populous and prosperous region of China. The Uprising of the Five Barbarians , also led to the resettlement of Fujian. The province of Fujian - whose aboriginal inhabitants had been deported to

16539-618: The most successful of which was the Northern Wei established by the Xianbei . From this period, the native population of China proper was referred to as Hanren, or the "People of Han" to distinguish them from the nomads from the steppe. Warfare and invasion led to one of the first great migrations of Han populations in history, as they fled south to the Yangzi and beyond, shifting the Chinese demographic center and speeding up sinicization of

16688-548: The name "New Ming History" has also appeared which refers to the emerging Ming-centred studies that give emphasis on the Inner Asian characteristics under the rule of the preceding Ming dynasty . It has been pointed out that examining the history of a dynasty from the Inner Asian perspective is also applicable to dynasties established by the Han Chinese, including the Ming dynasty (and earlier dynasties), rather than being exclusive to dynasties established by non-Han people like

16837-458: The north. Inner Asia Inner Asia refers to the northern and landlocked regions spanning North , Central and East Asia . It includes parts of western and northeast China , as well as southern Siberia . The area overlaps with some definitions of "Central Asia", mostly the historical ones, but certain regions that are often included in Inner Asia, such as Manchuria , are not

16986-510: The other. Smith indicated that based on the idea that "Qing empire" and "China" might not be the same thing the Qing had to be placed in a context that included Inner Asia in general and that saw China in a global field. The less " sinocentric " view, Smith continued, which placed less emphasis on "sinicization", had won over most China scholars in the West (and increasingly also in China), in spite of debates over "matters of degree." According to him,

17135-403: The pattern of Chinese history was for a conquest dynasty to adopt Chinese ways of rule and culture and attacked Rawski for Manchu-centrism. The school that is now known as the "New Qing History" developed after the debate. Historian Huang Pei later published a monograph that developed the objections stated by Ho Ping-ti. According to Professor Guo Wu, the skepticism of Eurocentrism , as part of

17284-658: The power of the Zhou kings fragmented not long afterwards, and many autonomous vassal states emerged. This dynasty is traditionally divided into two eras – the Western Zhou (1046–771 BCE) and the Eastern Zhou (770–256 BCE) – with the latter further divided into the Spring and Autumn (770–476 BCE) and the Warring States (476–221 BCE) periods. It was a period of significant cultural and philosophical diversification (known as

17433-486: The precedent for the next two millennia. To consolidate administrative control over the newly conquered parts of the country, the First Emperor decreed a nationwide standardization of currency, writing scripts and measurement units, to unify the country economically and culturally. He also ordered large-scale infrastructure projects such as the Great Wall , the Lingqu Canal and the Qin road system to militarily fortify

17582-437: The progenitors of Chinese civilization and the ancestors of modern Han Chinese. Han Chinese people and culture spread south from the northern heartland in the Yellow River valley, driven by large and sustained waves of migration during successive periods of Chinese history (e.g. the Qin and Han dynasties), leading to a demographic and economic tilt towards the south, and to the absorption of various non-Han ethnic groups over

17731-892: The provinces of Fujian , Guangdong and Hainan , and to a lesser extent, Guangxi , Yunnan and Zhejiang ). There are 60 million Overseas Chinese people worldwide. Overseas Han Chinese have settled in numerous countries across the globe, particularly within the Western World where nearly 4 million people of Han Chinese descent live in the United States (about 1.5% of the population), over 1 million in Australia (5.6%) and about 1.5 million in Canada (5.1%), nearly 231,000 in New Zealand (4.9%), and as many as 750,000 in Sub-Saharan Africa. The Han Chinese have

17880-503: The reason the Qing rulers could successfully govern China for nearly 300 years was not the result of sinicization, adopting the characteristics of Han Chinese rule and culture, but by their focus on retaining the characteristics of Manchu culture. They used such characteristics to strengthen relations with other nationalities to build a multiracial empire that included Manchu , Han , Mongol , Tibetan , Uyghur and other nationalities. For better governing his multiethnic empire, for instance,

18029-445: The region, for example, Panyu, were created by Han settlers rather than the Bai Yue, who preferred to maintain small settlements subsisting on swidden agriculture and rice farming. Later on, Guangdong, Northern Vietnam, and Yunnan all experienced a surge in Han Chinese migrants during Wang Mang 's reign. The demographic composition and culture of these regions during this period, could however scarcely be said to have been Sinitic outside

18178-531: The relocation of some communities and over time, varying degrees of intermarriage and assimilation took place. In Taiwan, Han Chinese (including both the earlier Han Taiwanese settlers and the recent Chinese that arrived in Taiwan with Chiang Kai-shek in 1949) constitute over 95% of the population. They have also been a politically, culturally and economically dominant majority vis-à-vis the non-Han indigenous Taiwanese peoples . Nearly 30 to 40 million people of Han Chinese descent live in Southeast Asia. According to

18327-672: The rest of China. Some New Qing historians have argued that the Manchu-ruled Qing was more comparable to the Ottoman , Mughal , and Romanov ( Russian ) Empires across the Eurasian landmass than most earlier Chinese dynasties . They argued that the Qing Empire was not only a victim of imperialism but also practiced imperialism itself. For example, Peter C. Perdue had described the Qing as a " colonial empire " that ruled over

18476-411: The same time, often behind the backs of their ethnic Han ministers, adopted other roles to rule other ethnic groups, including Bogda Khan for the Mongols and the wheel-turning king for Tibetan Buddhists . Edward Rhoads argued that the Manchus' integration into Han culture should be viewed as a reciprocal acculturation process. He further claimed that the Manchu identity was actually reinforced in

18625-410: The sinicization paradigm Han-centric. In his work China Marches West: The Qing Conquest of Central Euroasia , Peter Perdue offered his rebuttal to Ho’s sinicization thesis by raising two main points, including the separateness of the Manchu elite and Han mass, and the difference and non-uniformity among the subject population. On the other hand, scholar Yang Nianqun tried to analyze the weaknesses of both

18774-474: The south. At the start of the rebellion in 755 there were 52.9 million registered inhabitants of the Tang Empire, and after its end in 764, only 16.9 million were recorded. It is likely that the difference in census figures was due to the complete breakdown in administrative capabilities, as well as the widespread escape from the north by the Han Chinese and their mass migration to the south. By now,

18923-480: The south. This process of sustained mass migration has been known as "garments and headdresses moving south" 衣冠南渡 (yì guān nán dù), on account of it first being led by the aristocratic classes. Such migratory waves were numerous and triggered by such events such as the Uprising of the Five Barbarians during the Jin dynasty (304–316 AD) in which China was completely overrun by minority groups previously serving as vassals and servants to Sima (the royal house of Jin),

19072-613: The sparsely populated regions of south China were inhabited by tribes known only as the Bai Yue or Hundred Yue. Many of these tribes developed into kingdoms under rulers and nobility of Han Chinese ethnicity but retained a Bai Yue majority for several centuries. Yet others were forcibly brought into the Sinosphere by the imperial ambitions of emperors such as Qin Shi Huangdi and Han Wu Di, both of whom settled hundreds of thousands of Chinese in these lands to form agricultural colonies and military garrisons. Even then, control over these lands

19221-419: The standard terminology for Han Chinese writers. Rowe noted that "these were the origins of the China we know today". He added that while the early Qing rulers viewed themselves as multi-hatted emperors who ruled several nationalities "separately but simultaneously", by the mid-19th century the Qing Empire had become part of a European-style community of sovereign states and entered into a series of treaties with

19370-414: The study of Qing history. Inspired by New Qing History studies, the so-called "New Ming History" studies have also emerged, which similarly attempts to draw attention to the Inner Asian characteristics of the preceding Ming dynasty , and illustrates the existence of such characteristics in Chinese dynasties before the Qing dynasty. The use of "New Qing History" as an approach is to be distinguished from

19519-400: The term Tangren ( 唐人 ; Tángrén ; 'people of Tang'), derived from the name of the later Tang dynasty (618–907) that oversaw what is regarded as another golden age of China . The self-identification as Tangren is popular in south China, because it was at this time that massive waves of migration and settlement led to a shift in the center of gravity of the Chinese nation away from

19668-399: The term "Inner Asia" is the well-established term for the area in the literature. However, because of its deficiencies, including the implication of an "Outer Asia" that does not exist, Denis Sinor has proposed the neologism "Central Eurasia", which emphasizes the role of the area in intercontinental exchange. According to Sinor: The definition that can be given of Central Eurasia in space

19817-522: The term "Zhongguo". Scholar Yang Nianquan observed that some New Qing historians tended to place the Qing in the context of world history and interpret it using empire building theory; however, he argued that Peter Perdue's study of the Qing expansion to the Northwest frontier as "colonization" is an "over-interpretation" and an inaccurate analogy between Chinese history of unification and European colonial experiences. Although scholars appear to agree that

19966-406: The thesis may not be viewed as a static and unidirectional concept of Chinese ethnogenesis . He added that Chinese scholars contributed to refining the definition of China from Chinese perspectives in response to the somewhat overly radical approach of some New Qing historians, who have attempted, wittingly or unwittingly, to reduce "China" ( Zhongguo ) to China proper and "Chinese" ( Zhongguoren ) to

20115-401: The throne – fled to Wu and settled there. Three generations later, King Wu of the Zhou dynasty defeated King Zhou (the last Shang king), and enfeoffed the descendants of Taibo in Wu – mirroring the later history of Nanyue , where a Chinese king and his soldiers ruled a non-Han population and mixed with locals, who were sinicized over time. After the Battle of Muye , the Shang dynasty

20264-445: The tumult of the Central Plains to the peaceful lands south of the Yangtze and on the southeastern coast, leading to the earnest settlement by Chinese of lands hitherto regarded as part of the empire's sparsely populated frontier or periphery. Guangdong and Fujian, hitherto regarded as backwater regions populated by the descendants of garrison soldiers, exiles and refugees, became new centers and representatives of Han Chinese culture under

20413-577: The unity of China...." He sought to "expose its mask of pseudo-academic scholarship, eliminating the deleterious effect it has had on scholarship in China." Li went on to charge that the "whole range of views [New Qing History scholars] express are cliches and stereotypes, little more than dusted off versions in a scholarly tone of the Western imperialism and Japanese imperialism of the 19th century". American scholars such as Evelyn Rawski, Mark Elliott, Pamela Kyle Crossley, and James Millward, Li continued, "view

20562-481: The unpublished multi-volume history of the Qing dynasty that the State Council of the People's Republic of China sponsored between 2002 and 2023, which is also occasionally called "New Qing History" in English. Nevertheless, this state project, a revision of the 1928 Draft History of Qing , was said to be written primarily to refute the New Qing History. In November 2023, Zhang Taisu  [ zh ] ,

20711-414: The various regions of modern China today with distinct regional features. The expansion of the Han people outside their linguistic homeland in the Yellow River is an important part of their historical consciousness and ethnogenesis, and accounts for their present-day diversity. There were several periods of mass migration of Han people to Southeastern and Southern China throughout history. Initially,

20860-413: The way of scholarship. Zhong argues against the characterization of the Qing as a Western-style colonial empire, and against the non-identity of the Qing and China. In support of the latter argument, he follows the school in employing sources in non-Chinese language, but concludes that these affirm the Qing's self-identification with China rather than refute it. Han Chinese The Han Chinese or

21009-520: The well-developed characters hint at a much earlier origin of writing in China. During the Shang dynasty, people of the Wu area in the Yangtze River Delta were considered a different tribe, and described as being scantily dressed, tattooed and speaking a distinct language. Later, Taibo , elder uncle of Ji Chang – on realising that his younger brother, Jili, was wiser and deserved to inherit

21158-588: The word "China" while becoming Chinese. William T. Rowe wrote that the name "China" ( Zhongguo or Zhonghua ) was apparently understood to refer to the political realm of the Han Chinese during the Ming dynasty, and this understanding persisted among the Han Chinese into the early Qing dynasty, and the understanding was also shared by Aisin Gioro rulers before the Ming-Qing transition . The Qing, however, "came to refer to their more expansive empire not only as

21307-537: Was a brief period of prosperity under the native Han Chinese dynasty known as the Jin (266–420 BC), although protracted struggles within the ruling house of Sima (司馬) sparked off a protracted period of fragmentation, rebellion by immigrant tribes that served as slaves and indentured servants, and extended non-native rule. Non-native rule During this time, areas of northern China were overrun by various non-Han nomadic peoples , which came to establish kingdoms of their own,

21456-413: Was contradictory to the Hua–Yi distinction ideology. He wrote that the Qing rulers' viewpoint was constrained by this inclusive cultural Zhongguo , which had a longer history dating back to the Han dynasty , making it unattainable and reluctant for them to create an independent worldview focused on Inner Asia. Scholar Guo Chengkang wrote that when the Qing established its control in inland China following

21605-672: Was contrasted to that of peoples perceived as "Yi" (often translated as ' barbarian ') living on the peripheries of the Zhou kingdoms. Overseas Chinese who possess non-Chinese citizenship are commonly referred as "Hua people" ( 华人 ; 華人 ; Huárén ) or Huazu ( 华族 ; 華族 ; Huázú ). The two respective aforementioned terms are applied solely to those with a Han background that is semantically distinct from Zhongguo ren ( 中国人 ; 中國人 ) which has connotations and implications limited to being citizens and nationals of China, especially with regard to ethnic minorities in China . The name "Han people" ( 漢人 ; 汉人 ; Hànrén ) first appeared during

21754-407: Was formally entrenched in the Han dynasty. The Han dynasty is considered one of the golden ages of Chinese history, with the modern Han Chinese people taking their ethnic name from this dynasty and the Chinese script being referred to as " Han characters ". The fall of the Han dynasty was followed by an age of fragmentation and several centuries of disunity amid warfare among rival kingdoms. There

21903-540: Was overthrown by Zhou (led by Ji Fa ), which had emerged as a western state along the Wei River in the 2nd millennium BCE. The Zhou dynasty shared the language and culture of the Shang people, and extended their reach to encompass much of the area north of the Yangtze River . Through conquest and colonization, much of this area came under the influence of sinicization and this culture extended south. However,

22052-464: Was tenuous, and Bai Yue cultural identity remained strong until sustained waves of Han Chinese emigration in the Jin, Tang and Song dynasties altered the demographic balance completely. Chinese language (or Chinese languages) can be divided to 10 primary dialects (or languages). Each Han Chinese subgroup (民系) can be identified through their dialects: The first emperor Qin Shih Huang Di

22201-645: Was used during the period, which is a question worth studying, but did not hold that Qing dynasty is not China. Some scholars like Ping-ti Ho have criticized the approach for exaggerating the Manchu character of the dynasty, while scholars like Zhao Gang have argued from the evidence that the Qing dynasty self-identified as China. Some Chinese scholars accuse the American historians in the group of imposing American concerns with race and identity or even of imperialist misunderstanding to weaken China. Still others in China agree that this scholarship has opened new vistas for

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