Book contents
- From Empire to Nation State
- From Empire to Nation State
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Figures and Tables
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction What Is Destabilizing about China’s Ethnic Regions?
- 1 Changing Approaches to Identity
- 2 Changing Approaches to Ethnic Governance
- 3 Changing Approaches to Policy Instruments
- 4 The Rise of Identity Politics in Post-Mao China
- 5 Ethnic Autonomy and Its Discontents
- 6 Religious Revival and Its Discontents
- 7 Economic Modernization and Its Discontents
- 8 Educational Expansion and Its Discontents
- Conclusion From Empire to Nation State: Lessons and Reforms
- Bibliography
- Index
2 - Changing Approaches to Ethnic Governance
From Loose Rein to Ethno-territorialism
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 September 2020
- From Empire to Nation State
- From Empire to Nation State
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Figures and Tables
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction What Is Destabilizing about China’s Ethnic Regions?
- 1 Changing Approaches to Identity
- 2 Changing Approaches to Ethnic Governance
- 3 Changing Approaches to Policy Instruments
- 4 The Rise of Identity Politics in Post-Mao China
- 5 Ethnic Autonomy and Its Discontents
- 6 Religious Revival and Its Discontents
- 7 Economic Modernization and Its Discontents
- 8 Educational Expansion and Its Discontents
- Conclusion From Empire to Nation State: Lessons and Reforms
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
This chapter focuses on the changing strategies of ethnic governance in China’s transition from empire to the modern nation state. That is, evolution from a maintenance-oriented strategy to a transformative strategy aimed at national integration in the socialist era. Pre-modern Chinese dynasties applied diverse and indirect rule over their extensive frontier regions. This “minimalist state” came under serious challenges in modern times when the idea of the nation state arrived. After late Qing and Republican failures at modern state building, the CCP completed the transition to a modern state by establishing a uniform and direct form of ethnic governance based in titular ethnic status. Known as the system of autonomous regions, the new system served to incorporate frontier regions but departed from pre-modern practices of diverse and de-ethnicized rule. The contradictions therein – promoting political integration but also ethno-territories to fit that goal – or centralization and ethnicization, created a second set of institutional dynamics for ethnic strife in contemporary times.
Keywords
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- From Empire to Nation StateEthnic Politics in China, pp. 50 - 75Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2020