Panel 55: Nation, Ethnicity, and Narrative in Contemporary China

Chair: Karrie Koesel, University of Notre Dame

Panelists

Chris White, The Ohio State University, “Remembering Ancestors in Contemporary China: Organic ‘Sinicization’ of Chinese Protestantism”

The campaign to zhongguo hua, or “Sinicize,” religions in China has recently been implemented by the Chinese party-state. While this movement has clear political objectives, this paper argues that for the past quarter century, a more organic and grassroots movement to “Sinicize” Chinese Protestantism has also been growing. This research is based on over a decade of fieldwork in Southeast China, including post-COVID visits, in which I have collected local documents, met with church leaders and lay members, interviewed local officials, and attended dozens of family rituals. Particularly highlighted in this presentation will be the recent compilation of Christian genealogies and the construction of Christian ancestral halls. These documents and structures reflect a merging of traditional sources of local legitimacy with new religious beliefs and values. They present Protestantism as a family tradition, and as such, deserving of commemoration. This is at odds with most contemporary analysis of Chinese Protestantism, which focuses on the growth of the religion in the Reform Era. The Christian genealogies and ancestral halls analyzed here reveal an uptick in interest in Christian heritage and suggest that understanding Sinicization of Chinese Christianity solely, or even primarily, from a political perspective is misguided. The production, consumption, and cooptation of Christian history in contemporary China, as discussed in this paper, suggests that despite the decreasing civil and religious space experienced during the Xi Jinping era, commemorating Christian history is an important avenue for religious expression.

Karrie Koesel, University of Notre Dame, “Telling China’s Story Well: How the PRC Uses Positivity to Persuade Global Audiences”

One of the most striking aspects of Xi Jinping’s administration has been an emphasis on external propaganda efforts. Xi has called on state-run media and government representatives as well as social influencers to “Tell China’s Story Well‚” a narrative that portrays the PRC as a powerful country, leading globally, providing solutions, and shaping a new world order. This paper draws on computational social science strategies to unpack external propaganda efforts and themes over 12 months. We analyze multimodal propaganda across Facebook,Twitter, and YouTube to explore how the PRC attempts to shape opinions beyond its borders. We find the dominant message is a positive one. External propaganda provides uplifting narratives that highlight China’s achievements with a particular emphasis on the richness of Chinese culture. We also show a secondary, and more subtle, narrative to discredit the West, especially the United States. Here, propaganda highlights the flaws of Western institutions and social injustices within democracies. Finally, we demonstrate how Beijing engages with contentious topics from Xinjiang and Taiwan to the spy-balloon incident with rapid-fire responses to reframe and refute criticisms directed at the PRC.

Yutong Zhu, University of Chicago, “Between Min and Zu: Ethnonym and National Narrative in Post-Imperial China”

The authority of the national narrative relies on discourse that innovates and stabilizes language as “content-laden reference points.” The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) employed minzu for the identification of ethnic groups that shared the post-imperial territory—what after 1949 became the fifty-six minzu forming the national body. Viewing minzu as social engineering, I focus on one aspect of language in political discourse—the choice between Huizu, Huimin, and Huijiao, terms for the Hui Muslims. Throughout the first half of the twentieth century, Huimin and Huijiao were predominantly used in political terminology and unofficial writing to downplay political consciousness. During the 1940s, the CCP strategically elevated Huizu to emphasize their recognition of the Hui nationality status. Yet, Huimin persisted in discourse due to historical inertia and the CCP’s intention of distinguishing Hui “victims” from “reactionary” Hui elites. Following the end of Hui insurrection, Huimin fell out of favor and was relegated solely to historical narratives of uprising. Huijiao faded into complete obscurity. Through computational analysis of cultural associations embedded in language, I argue that the divergence of Hui ethnonyms is most notable in official historiography, where Huizu stood out as the most modern, loyal, and peaceful compared to other terms. While the vestiges of old prejudices and historical memories persist in archaic ethnonyms, the state-led acceptance of the neologism Huizu, as part of the minoritization process, has afforded the term a favorable position in historical narrative and cultural perception. It assigned new meanings to language in service of the nation.

Yu Liu, University of California, Santa Barbara, “Representing the People, Representing the Nation?: Nationality, Ethnicity, and the Paradigm of Representation in Modern China”

This paper examines the intricate relationship between political representation and the formation of ethnical and national identity in 1930s and 1940s China. Drawing on a diverse range of sources from the KMT archive in Taipei, including telegraphs and petitions from ethnic minority leaders, professional groups, and labor unions in the salt industry, it aims to illuminate a distinct model of representation within the political discourse of the Republican era. The paper begins by investigating the interactions between the Nationalist government and political elites from Tibet and Inner Mongolia concerning the representation of ethnic minorities in the National Assembly. Despite the Nationalist revolutionaries’ initial commitment to the principle of “Five Races Under One Union” during the late Qing era, ethnic minorities continued to press the Nationalist government to fulfill its promises until 1946. By juxtaposing the demands of ethnic minorities with those of professional groups, the paper argues that the nuanced interplay between rights and responsibilities significantly shaped the strategies adopted by various groups seeking political representation. The paper further investigates how various groups leveraged their contributions to the Nationalist government’s wartime endeavors as a basis for advocating representation. This, in turn, not only shaped their collective identities but also presented a challenge to the KMT’s envisioned unified national framework outlined in the written constitution. By emphasizing ethnic minorities’ articulation of what, whom, and how to represent, the paper demonstrates how constitutional discourse prompted both social and political mobilization for representation, even within the constraints of an incomplete representative democracy.