The historical perspective of the Chinese Nation: An analytical framework grounded in the critique of exogenous historiographies

Abstract

China maintains the most enduring and uninterrupted cultural tradition and civilizational system among major ancient civilizations. As a unified multi-ethnic nation since ancient times, throughout historical development, China’s vast territory was jointly pioneered by all its ethnicities, its enduring history collectively authored, its splendid culture co-created, and its great national spirit mutually cultivated—thereby forging an inseparable community of the Chinese Nation. This community, bound by shared subjective and objective characteristics, derives its foundational cohesion from commonalities, which are the crucial catalyst for fostering communal consciousness among its members. To conduct rigorous research into Chinese history, particularly the formative processes of the Chinese Nation, adherence to the correct historical perspective of the Chinese Nation is paramount. However, under the influence of Western cultural hegemony, exogenous historiographies and theories such as the “New Qing History”—under the guise of theoretical or discursive innovation—systematically deconstruct China’s historical narratives and the Chinese Nation’s historical discourse, either attacking or undermining the correct understanding of Chinese history, which poses challenges to a proper grasp of ethnic relations in Chinese history and the construction of the community of the Chinese Nation. Through critical analysis of the so-called “New Qing History” and similar “new historical paradigms,” this article exposes their inherent historical and logical flaws, while demonstrating the necessity to uphold the correct historical perspective of the Chinese Nation.