New textbook ‘Community of the Chinese Nation’ promotes new discipline studies

Photo: Xu Liuliu/GT

A new textbook on the subject of the community of the Chinese Nation has been released by China's Higher Education Press and the Ethnic Publishing House. The Outline of the Community of the Chinese Nation was completed under the guidance of the National Ethnic Affairs Commission to fill the gap on theoretical education concerning the subject of the community of the Chinese Nation. 

At a Tuesday seminar in Beijing, editorial team members and scholars shared their opinions and thinking on the new book as well as the future development of a new discipline.

With a large amount of archaeological and historical materials, especially the fact that various ethnic groups in ancient China interacted, exchanged and integrated with each other, the textbook illustrates that the formation of the community of the Chinese nation was the inevitable result of the historical development. It uses the formation and development of the Chinese nation to refute erroneous historical views in the West that attempt to deconstruct the Chinese nation, said Tan Fangzheng, editor-in-chief of the Higher Education Press. 

As Chinese academic circles are already preparing to establish the discipline Community for the Chinese Nation Studies, the textbook is a pioneering work on this subject. Yang Shengmin, a senior professor at Minzu University of China, said that construction of the discipline also requires the preparation of more teaching materials, which can fully reflect China's positions and Chinese theories in the fields of philosophy and social sciences, and enhance China's voices in the international academic community.

Previously, there was a lack of ethnic history content in China's primary, secondary and university education, noted Ma Rong, a professor at Peking University. History textbooks in primary and secondary schools are only "brief chronological histories and lack an introduction to community for the Chinese nation and its connotations."

In recent years, two textbooks for primary and secondary schoolers, The Big Family of the Chinese Nation and The Great Unity of the Chinese Nation have been introduced. The Outline of Community for the Chinese Nation "marks a big step in the education work of forging a strong sense of community for the Chinese nation," added Ma. 

Experts at the seminar agreed that a sense of community for Chinese nation has actually evolved since 1840.

Clearer expressions of some major core concepts such as the Chinese nation have been given in the new book. Today the Chinese nation mainly includes compatriots of all ethnic groups who identify with the community of the Chinese nation in the Chinese mainland, Hong Kong SAR, Macao SAR, the island of Taiwan as well as overseas.