About Us

2024/25 School of Chinese Research Student Seminar

Building “Chinese Nation” at the Frontier:

State-building, World Christianity, and the State-Society Relationship in Modern China

Abstract:

The building of the “Chinese Nation” has been a decades-long project for modern China. During the Republic of China era (1912-1949), facing huge national crisis, the Chinese government and the public attempted to unite all nations in China. This research aims to understand how the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) contributed to the state-building process and eased ethnic conflict during periods of low state capacity. Using both qualitative and statistical method, it also proposes a new paradigm for understanding the state-building process in China and how ideology is used to maintain state-society relationships.

In the study of Chinese state-building, historians and political scientists often neglected the role of non-state and international actors. During the brutal War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression, KMT faced low state capacity, which hindered its nation-building efforts in Southwest China and exacerbated differences between ethnic minorities and the Han Chinese. With the help of the Chinese Christian Church and other foreign missions, KMT continued its nation-building efforts in the Xikang area. This study argues that non-state and international actors took a significance part in the state-building process in Chinese frontier. By adopting a new ideology that combined modern Chinese nationalism with Christian thought, KMT motivated both domestic and international non-state actors to played significant roles in constructing modern China at its frontiers.