encouraging ethnic integration through tailor-made national history

Party cadres should uphold narratives that verify the existence of a united Chinese national consciousness and develop the nation’s shared spiritual homeland together, contends Pan Yue 潘岳 CUFD (Central United Front Department) vice director, State Ethnic Affairs Commission head and Party Committee secretary. Pan considers that the Chinese civilisation has

• an apparent historical continuity
  • the Chinese civilisation is the only great civilisation that has continued to develop in the form of a unitary state, sustained by
    • the inheritance of political legitimacy from previous dynasties
    • the collective consensus of past and present  leaderships (including ethnic-minority-ruled dynasties) to regard themselves as part of the Chinese nation
• strong innovative capabilities
  • have the capability to reshape its material, spiritual and political civilisation
  • reactivating the Chinese cultural genes by enacting Marxist reform
• an evident nature of unity
  • national unity as a political system and cultural norm has been part of Chinese national tradition for thousands of years
  • regardless of race, all dynasties in power aim to
    • establish a united great state
    • legitimise themselves as the orthodoxy of Chinese culture
  • different ethnic groups are united as one under this structure
  • national unity is the core interest of China and all Chinese ethnic groups
    • national territory cannot be ceded
    • the Chinese nation must not be dispensed into independent ethnic groups
    • the Chinese culture must not be discontinued
• a heart of acceptance and inclusiveness
  • Chinese cultural identification exceeds
    • territorial constraints
    • bloodlines and clans
    • religions beliefs
  • despite civil wars and inner conflicts, unity and harmony dominate the majority of Chinese national history
  • to ensure national survival, the Chinese nation must be inclusive towards
    • other global civilisations
    • inner cultural differences
• a desire for peace
  • even in the heyday of Chinese civilisation, the Chinese did not
    • carry out foreign expansion
    • colonise surrounding nations
    • practice cultural hegemony
  • the Chinese nation does not seek binary opposition, but aims to search for common characteristics amid diversity
  • the traditional desire for peace provided the Chinese nation with rich cultural resources for building a community of shared future

Pan further points out that a few underpinning logic that binds the Chinese spiritual homeland together

• the ‘two integrations’
  • Chinese traditional ideology provided a solid historical base for the contemporary construction of a Chinese spiritual homeland
    • promoting people’s leadership
    • patriotism
    • diversity within unity
  • uphold the fundamental principles of Marxist theory
• the historical trend of national integration
  • Chinese history is the history of ethnic and cultural integration
  • Han majority and other ethnic minorities have interacted and integrated for centuries
• the Party’s experience in cultural construction

To uphold these historiographic and political directives, Pan proposes the following policies

• maintaining the guiding principles of Xi Jinping Thought 
  • develop a comprehensive theoretical structure for Chinese national unity
    • historiographic system
    • discursive system
    • theoretical system
  • scientifically demonstrate the philosophical and academic principles behind the Chinese nation’s formation and development
  • encourage higher education institutions to introduce and prioritise ethnological subjects
• developing a correct historiographic perspective
  • encourage research on Chinese ethnic history
  • support the editorial procedure of the academic text Chinese History on Ethnic Interaction, Exchange and Integration
  • develop an ethnic-related national history narrative
• pursuing common values and norms
  • normalise propaganda education through institutionalisation
    • cultivate the consciousness for unity for all ethnic groups in the Chinese nation
  • strengthen contemporary civilisational education
    • deepen civic moral construction
    • mould a new type of socialist man in the New Era
    • modernise the thinking and ways of living of all ethnic groups
• deepening cultural identification
  • construct discursive systems to embody cultural symbols, national spirits and the Chinese national image
  • strengthen cultural relics protection to transform ethnic identification based on the history of Chinese origins
  • create Chinese-based, ethnic-minorities-influenced art and literature
  • unify textbook publication rights and permit only state-developed materials
• strengthening education on national unity
  • unify all ethnic groups in terms of ideology, faith, emotion and culture
  • refine supportive measures for special administrated regions
  • support deepening reform and opening up measures in ethnic autonomous regions