| For Chinese revolutionaries at the turn of the century, the collapse of the Qing dynasty was a mixed blessing. Although Han nationalists had achieved their stated objective, the disintegration of the Manchu regime was accompanied by a disintegration of the very "Qing universalism" which had kept the territories of China together for more than two centuries. Confronting the potential loss of Mongolia, Tibet, Xinjiang, and the provinces of the southwest, the empire-turned-nation-state of China ran the risk of being stillborn.; Coming to Terms with the Nation examines the production of a new Chinese universalism in the twentieth century, forged through the convergence of two powerful, transnational worldviews: the state socialist worldview, as articulated by the Chinese Communists under Mao, and the social scientific worldview, as articulated by ethnologists operating in southwest China during the Second World War. The basic contours of this new universalism are readily apparent in contemporary China, whether in museums, on television, or even in conversations with taxi drivers in Yunnan. Pose the question of demographic diversity to practically anyone in the People's Republic, and more often than not one's interlocutor will respond, without hesitation or pause for reflection, that there are fifty-six minzu or "nationalities" in China---fifty-five minorities and the Han majority. Added together, moreover, these fifty-six groups are believed to form one synergistic whole: the unified, multiethnic People's Republic of China. Phrased mathematically, the equation reads 55+1=1. This strange calculus of Chinese nationhood constitutes a new form of universalism which, in both its power and pervasiveness, has surpassed even that of the Manchu regime. Where did this strange calculus come from? How was this equation derived and why in this particular form?; The cornerstone of this new universalism was a project known as the Ethnic Classification, or minzu shibie. Through the examination of a wealth of recently declassified archival materials from the early PRC, as well as oral histories with surviving members of the project, this study explores how social scientists and PRC state authorities went about creating the ethnic minorities of China through coordinated processes of categorization and social engineering. |
