Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-xtgtn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-15T23:42:38.767Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Racial Identities in China: Context and Meaning

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 February 2009

Extract

This yellow river, it so happens, bred a nation identified by its yellow skin pigment. Moreover, this nation also refers to its earliest ancestor as the Yellow Emperor. Today, on the face of the earth, of every five human beings there is one that is a descendant of the Yellow Emperor.

Type
Focus on Race and Racism in China
Copyright
Copyright © The China Quarterly 1994

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1. Xiaokang, Su, “Introduction,” “River Elegy,” Chinese Sociology and Anthropology, Vol. 24, No. 2 (Winter 1991–92), p. 9.Google Scholar

2. For instance Ho, David Y. F., “Prejudice, colonialism, and interethnic relations: An EastWest dialogue,” Journal of Asian and African Studies, No. 20 (1985), pp. 224–25.Google Scholar

3. Stafford, Charles, “The discourse of race in modern China,” Man: The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, Vol. 28, No. 3 (September 1993), p. 609.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

4. Youwei, Kang, Datongshu (One World) (Beijing: Guji chubanshe, 1956), pp. 118122.Google Scholar

5. Stafford, “The discourse of race in modem China,” p. 609.

6. Banton, Michael, Racial Theories (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987).Google Scholar

7. Wen, Sun (Sun Yat-sen), Sanminzhuyi (The Three People's Principles) (Shanghai: Shangwu yinshuguan, 1927), pp. 45.Google Scholar

8. For a more detailed discussion of essentialism in explanations of racism, see Cohen's, Philip excellent article, “‘It's racism what dunnit’: Hidden narratives in theories of racism” in Donald, James and Rattansi, Ali (eds.), “Race,” Culture and Difference (London: Sage, 1992), pp. 83–84.Google Scholar

9. On the interplay between discourses of gender, sexuality and race, see Dikötter, Frank, Sex, Culture and Modernity in China: Medical Science and the Construction of Sexual Identities in the Early Republic Period (London: Hurst; and Honolulu: Hawaii University Press, 1994Google Scholar (in press)).

10. Caichang, Tang, Juedianmingzhai neiyan (Essays on Political and Historical Matters) (Taipei: Wenhai chubanshe, 1968), p. 468.Google Scholar

11. Shipei, Liu, “Huangdi jinian shuo” (“About a calendar based on the Yellow Emperor”), Huangdi hurt (The Soul of the Yellow Emperor), 1904 (Taipei: Zhonghua minguo shiliao congbian, 1968 reprint), p. 1.Google Scholar

12. Tianhua, Chen, Chen Tianhua ji (Collected Works of Chen Tianhua) (Changsha: Hunan renmin chubanshe, 1982), p. 81.Google Scholar

13. Yucang, Chen, Renti de yanjiu (Research on the Human Body) (Shanghai: Zhengzhong shuju, 1937), p. 180.Google Scholar

14. Boqiang, Liang, “Yixueshang Zhongguo minzu zhi yanjiu” (“Medical research on the Chinese race”), Dongfang zazhi (Eastern Miscellanea), No. 13 (July 1926), pp. 87100.Google Scholar

15. Yutang, Lin, My Country and My People (New York: John Ray, 1935), p. 26.Google Scholar

16. Yaquan, Duet al. (eds.), Dongwuxue da cidian (Great Dictionary of Zoology) (Shanghai: Shangwu yinshuguan, 1927 (1st ed. 1923), p. 15.Google Scholar

17. Yunsen, Fu, Renwen dili (Human Geography) (Shanghai: Shangwu yinshuguan, 1914), pp. 915.Google Scholar

18. Wieger, L., Moralismeofficieldesecoles, en 1920(Hien-hien, 1921, p. 180Google Scholar, original Chinese text).

19. For a detailed discusson, see Dikotter, Frank, The Discourse of Race in Modern China (London: C. Hurst; Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press; Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 1992).Google ScholarPubMed

20. Dirlik, Arif, “The discourse of race in modern China: review article,” China Information, Vol. 7, No. 4 (Spring 1993), pp. 6871.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

21. For instance Partha Chatterjee, Nationalist Thought and the Colonial World: A Derivative Discourse? (London: ZED, 1986) and Anderson, Benedict, Imagined Communi-ties: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (London: Verso, 1991), pp. 152–53.Google Scholar

22. Cohen, Paul, Discovering History in China: American Historical Writing on the Recent Chinese Past (New York: Columbia University Press, 1984).Google Scholar

23. Jan Nieuhof, Hetgezantschap derNeerlandtsche Oost-Indische Compagnie aan den Grdoten Tartarischen Cham den tegenwoordigen Keizer van China (Amsterdam: Jacob van Meurs, 1665), p. 173.

24. Huard, Pierre, “Depuis quand avons-nous la notion d'une race jaune?Institut Indochinois pour I'Etude de I'Homme, No. 4 (1942), pp. 4041.Google Scholar

25. Vierheller, E., Nation und Elite im Denken von Wang Fu-chih (1619–1692) (Hamburg: Gesellschaft für Natur- und Völkerkunde Ostasiens, 1968), pp. 30, 124.Google Scholar

26. Taiping yulan (Song Encyclopaedia), quoting the Later Han work “Fengsutong” (Taipei: Xinxing shuju, 1959), p. 1693 (360:5a). See also Jianren, Zhou, “Renzhong qiyuan shuo” (“Legends about the origins of human races”), Dongfang zazhi, Vol. 16, No. 11 (June 1919), pp. 93100.Google Scholar

27. Kamachi, Noriko, Reform in China: Huang Tsun-hsien and the Japanese Model (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1981), pp. 15, 141.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

28. Lewis, Charles M., Prologue to the Chinese Revolution: The Transformation of Ideas and Institutions in Hunan Province, 1891–1907 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University East Asian Research Center, 1976), pp. 6465.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

29. Hao, Chang, Chinese Intellectuals in Crisis: Search for Order and Meaning 1890–1911 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987).Google Scholar

30. Yang, Bo, “Zhongzu qishi” (“Racial discrimination”), Choulou de Zhongguoren (The Ugly Chinese) (Taipei: Linbai chubanshe, 1985), pp. 212–14.Google Scholar

31. Jenner, W. J. F., “Past and present political futures for China,” paper presented to the 19th National Conference of the Australian Institute of International Affairs, Sydney, 9 October 1993, p. 13.Google Scholar

32. “Gansu tongguo difang fagui jinzhi chidai sharen shengyu” (“Gansu province promulgates a law prohibiting mentally retarded people to bear children”), Renmin ribao, 25 November 1988.

33. Dikotter, Frank, “Eugenics in Republican China,” Republican China, Vol. 15, No. 1 (November 1989), pp. 117.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

34. Survey of World Broadcasts, 22 December 1993, pp. G/2–3.