Communication In Chinese History And The Identity Of "China" In The Sui&Tang Empire

When reviewing the history of China, we can find that communication has been exerting influences on Chinese people’s self-identity construction and national imagination. This dissertation focuses on the typical political and cross-cultural communication activities happened in the period of the Sui and Tang Dynasties to explore the two questions by applying historical research method, textual research, and case study method. Firstly, when the diversified ethnic groups in the Sui&Tang Empire gradually achieved cohesion and the social structure was integrated and regulated well, how did these ethnic groups form and change the imaginations of their self-identity and the " China" community? Secondly, how did the Sui&Tang Empire of China construct its social identity as a state in the ancient international relations, when it communicated with other monarchies? To be specific, the political communication activities in ancient China referred to releasing governmental information, spreading policies and law, constructing communication channels, holding governmental sacrificial ceremony, and so on; cross-cultural communication between ancient China and foreign countries happened in the forms of exchanging official diplomatic documents, mutual frontier trade, tribute, foreign people studying in China, foreign religions spread in China or Chinese belief spread abroad; and cross-cultural communication between diversified ethnic groups in the Sui&Tang Empire of China happened in the process of immigration, cross-ethnic marriage, being functional group of the empire and so on.The main contents of this dissertation consists of five points,(1) exploring the three typical self-identity perceptions emerged in Chinese people during the history before the Sui&Tang Empire of China;(2) exploring how Chinese people then constructed the political identity of the Sui&Tang Empire and reached the consensus of unification of China, by focusing on the relations between the political communication activities and the integration between the capital and local regions in the Sui&Tang Empire of China;(3)exploring how the local identity was replaced by the consensus of the unification of China during the process of the continual cohesion between the south and the north regional societies.(4)exploring the emerging process of the national identity of China in during the period of the Sui&Tang Empire by discussing how the Chinese and other ethnic groups achieved cohesion in the process of cross-cultural communications;(5) exploring how the Sui&Tang Empire constructed its social identity when it communicated with other monarchies.At the end of the the6Century A.D, When the society of Fast East was reunited in the Sui Dynasty after separation of more than3oo years during the period of Wei,Jin and the Northern&Southern dynasties, China achieved far more prosperity. Within the Empire, it was clear that the social structure was gradually integrated, diversified ethnic groups went on cohesively, based on the relatively convenient land transportation and the Grand Channel,as well as effective political communication system. In the light of communication science, it is widely accepted that effective political communication and system will improve the cohesiveness of the social structure; convenient traffic infrastructure can bring more communication of social resources. When more diversified and frequent cross-cultural communication among ethnic groups brought about more huge "Chinese" group, Chinese people were reconstructing their concepts of themselves and others. When prosperous Chinese traditional culture worked together with diversified ethnic culture within the united political system of the Tang Dynasty, the community of China gained both much more hard and soft power. Especially, China was benefited from such soft power gained in the Tang Dynasty for a long time.In the international system of pre-early-modern time,on one hand, the Sui&Tang Empire achieved relatively dominant soft power in diplomatic contacts when it was powerful, which to a certain extent resulted in the reality of tribute system. On the other hand, the empire had to give up its dominant position in diplomatic contacts with Tibetan regime when the military of the empire was not powerful enough. Based on the above backgrounds and diplomatic realities, the Empire of Tang changed its former concept and imagination of selfness of "Center Empire" into the self-identity of the Nation of "Tang".Above all, When China’s corporate identity and its social identity reacted with each other in the background of joint threats and external dangers, more intense consciousness of "China" community was aroused and reflected by many texts of literature of intellectuals in the Tang dynasty.In all, Communication activities will exert more or less influences on social structure both spatially and continually. Information and culture sharing will largely exert influences on actors’senses of self-identity and belonging, furthermore, will act on their constructions of the meaning of "weness" and nation. On the one hand, when more groups of "other" contacts with the group of "I" frequently, cultural hybridism and cohesion within ethnic groups become an ordinary cultural phenomenon. On the other hand, fluctuating diplomatic position happened in frequent diplomatic contacts between the Empire of Tang and other kind-oms or states. In such cultural context and diplomatic reality, the subjects in the Empire of Tang would reconstruct their imagination of "we" community in the relation with the groups of "other", based on their corporate identity.