De-Constructing the Chinese Nation

Abstract

Most Sinologists view the Chinese nation as a relatively recent development, one that made the transition from empire to nation only around the turn of the twentieth century. This contrasts with the view of the Chinese nationalists and the ordinary people of China that their country is an ancient body that has evolved into present times. This split in the understanding of the Chinese nation cannot be easily resolved by Western theories of nationalism, whose assumptions are deeply embedded in modernization theory. In this paper, I propose a few alternative categories, inspired in part by post-modernist theories and in part by a comparative perspective, to understand both the question of the history of the nation as well as the related one about the nature of national identity. In the problematique of modernization theories the nation is a unique and unprecedented form of community which finds its place in the oppositions between empire and nation, tradition and modernity, and centre and periphery. As the new and sovereign subject of history, the nation embodies a moral force that allows it to supersede dynasties and ruling segments, which are seen as merely partial subjects representing only themselves through history. By contrast, the nation is a collective subject whose ideal periphery exists outside itself poised to realize its historical destiny in a modern future. ' To be sure, modernization theory has clarified many aspects of nationalism. But in its effort to see the nation as a collective subject of modernity, it obscures the nature of national identity. I propose instead that we view national identity as founded upon fluid relationships; it thus both resembles and is interchangeable with other political identities. If the dynamics of national identity lie within the same terrain as other political identities, we will need to break with two assumptions of modernization