This paper traces three trajectories of migration into the Tang dynasty: the southward relocation of Yun Kan 是雲偘 and Heba Liang’s 賀拔亮 family from the north, the eastward movement of the Tuyuhun 吐谷渾 royal lineage from the west into the imperial court’s domain, and the gradual eastward migration of the Sogdians 粟特 into the Central Plains. Through these case studies, it explores how these non-Han groups underwent cultural and identitarian transformations after entering Han Chinese territories. It goes without saying that the “aliens” who entered the Sinosphere were forced by surrounding powers to adapt by changing their ethnic cultures. After the Shiyun Kan and Heba Liang clans from the Gaoche 高車 ethnic group entrusted their fates to the Tuoba 拓跋 regime, they had a meteoric rise serving as officials at court as it moved south, and also they changed their former culture through intermarriages with Han clans. After the Tuyuhun royal family lost its homeland due to the eastward expansion of the Tubo 吐蕃 and joined forces with the Tang court, they were incorporated into the court’s northern defensive system as foreign royalty and they changed their ethnic culture as they took up dynastic offices. The ethnic cultural identities of the Sogdians who lived in groups or acted individually and their descendants also took on new appearances as they integrated with certain regional societies. No matter how complex and varied they were, however, these relationships essentially revealed that the ethnic cultures of these outsiders were dominated and controlled by the Tang state.

The Mahākāla (Mahegela 麻曷葛剌) statue in Hangzhou’s Baocheng Temple 寶成寺 is an important part of Tibetan Buddhist heritage from Yuan China. The original statue’s epigraph is preserved in the statue niche, and it is one of the few Tibetan Buddhist niche statues with clear dating that still exists in China. This paper explores the identity of those who provided offerings to the Mahākāla statue and examines the cultural connotations of their names based on an on-site survey and the content of the statue epigraph. It also reveals the customs of Uyghurs in making Buddhist offerings and their identification with Chinese culture.

This article examines the long intellectual history behind debates over what “China” is, asking whether the Chinese peoples shared a single origin and whether the region has been unified since antiquity. Tracing interpretations from early imperial historiography—especially Records of the Grand Historian—through late Qing and Republican-era encounters with Western theories, the essay shows how ideas of common ancestry and perpetual unity were historically constructed rather than empirically given. It highlights how modern challenges, including Sino-Babylonianism, racial theories, and the notion of “China proper,” destabilized traditional views and prompted new scholarly approaches such as the twentieth-century Debates on Ancient History. At the same time, the article demonstrates how political crises repeatedly encouraged a return to essentialist narratives emphasizing antiquity, unity, and continuity. By situating historiographical arguments within their political and intellectual contexts, the essay argues that “China” and “Chinese civilization” should be understood as products of long-term historical construction shaped by both integration and contestation.

As a national title, the meaning of Zhongguo (中國, ‘Middle Kingdom,’ ‘China’) profoundly reflects the dialectical unity of the philosophy of the “Three Changes” from the Book of Changes (Yijing 易經): Bianyi (變易, ‘change’), jianyi (簡易, ‘simplification’) and buyi (不易, ‘immutability’). Change: Through the intermingling and interaction of a succession of ethnic polities, the semantics of Zhongguo have continuously expanded, elevating it from a geographical concept to a cultural and political community. Simplification: As a symbol of the identity of a succession of ethnic polities, the term Zhongguo extends through past and present, and has become the political cornerstone of the great unified state. Immutability: Its core has always been directed toward the governing wisdom of “inner cultivation of civilization and virtue, and outer transformation in the four directions,” forming a trans-epochal value consensus. History has shown that the inheritance and interpretation of the name Zhongguo by the various polities of China’s antiquity are not only testimony to cultural assimilation, but are furthermore the basis for China’s formation of a unified multiethnic state today.