Asian Ethnicities (1a)—Han 漢族

A year ago on Round and Square (6 July 2011)—Seinfeld Ethnography: Too Late for Coffee

Click here for the introduction to the Round and Square series "Asian Ethnicities" 

Click here for other posts dealing with East Asian ethnic majorities:  

China 1       China 2       China 3       Japan 1       Japan 2       Japan 3       Korea 1       Korea 2       Korea 3

[a] Centered RF

The first three entries (each in several segments) for the Round and Square series "Asian Ethnicities" deal with the majority ethnic groups in China, Japan, and Korea. We are starting with these groups precisely because they permeate all of the nooks and crannies of their respective histories. Indeed, the history of China is often taught (and this is especially true in Chinese schools) as the history of the Han ethnicity. As we shall see, this is particularly problematic in China, since the history of China can better—this is my opinion—be taught as a constant set of interactions with ethnic groups to the west, south, and especially north. It is no less important in Japan and Korea, however. The relative homgeneity of those populations exacerbate the problems, and engagement with various ethnic groups tends to be even further marginalized. I hope to give, in these introductory posts, a way of thinking about majority ethnicity in China, Japan, and Korea. These are by no means my last word on the subject(s). As you can see from the introduction to this series, these are works in process and are meant to be essays in every sense of the term.

Han 漢族 (汉族)

The Han ethnic group is by far the majority in today’s China, with over ninety-percent of the population identified under that category. This has been true for much of Chinese history, but with somewhat less dominant numbers. Indeed, one reading of Chinese history in the past 3,000 years shows a profound and sometimes highly divisive back-and-forth between Han Chinese and what today have come to be called “minority groups.” The first outright possession of China proper by non-Han rulers occurred during the Yuan dynasty (1368-1644), when Mongolian leaders ruled from Beijing. At no point was non-Han occupation more dramatically shown than in the Qing dynasty (1644-1911), when a Manchu domination of the imperial machinery penetrated into Han social life to the point that Han men were forced to wear the “queue” as a sign of submission that enveloped the vast majority of the Chinese population.

[b] Influenced RF

The more common case in Chinese history has been for the Han ethnic group to dominate, and to portray Chinese history as a history of the Han peoples. Courses on “China” throughout the world have been so heavily influenced by this pattern that it is sometimes difficult to see that the Han ethnicity, even though they form an enormous majority, are still one cog in the vast interplay of ethnic interchange that has made up Chinese history and culture for the past three thousand years. Han is Chinese, but Han is not “China.”

Han ethnicity is as diverse as it is overwhelming, and understanding that dynamic is key to understanding China throughout its long history. For example, the Han Chinese are not by any means an ethnic group united by spoken language. Numerous dialects span the vast territories where the Han ethnic group has found a place, including large swaths of southern and western China. The dialect groups have strong regional connections, but people of Han ethnicity have come to be the dominant population group in all of them. This dynamic can be seen today in China’s far west, where large numbers of Han have moved—often motivated by government incentives and employment strategies of their companies—to the major cities of Gansu, Qinghai, Xinjiang, and Xizang (Tibet) provinces.   

Geography and History  
In many ways, the history of China as taught in schools throughout the world is the history of the Han ethnic majority. This is a significant consequence of the dominance of Han culture over the past three millennia, and Han origins can be found much deeper in a series of Neolithic cultures flourishing along the Yellow River in northern China from approximately 7000 BCE. China’s early history—still very much the product of mythology, but with a growing archaeological record behind it—places key cultural changes in the late-third and second centuries BCE. The dynasties known as Xia (traditional: 2205-1766 BCE) and Shang (traditional: 1766-1122 BCE) saw the development of written characters and oracular divination extending from the growing center of a moderately centralized state.

[c] Dominance RF

Agricultural innovations during the Shang led to significant growth of the Han people’s ancestors, but it was during the Zhou period (traditional: 1122-221 BCE) that the full impact of Han cultural flourishing could be seen. During that time, the inexorable movement toward a truly centralized state influenced practically all elements of Chinese society and culture. The Spring and Autumn period is known for the ascendancy of a “feudal” state model and the first great texts of Chinese history and philosophy, including the works of Confucius, who was said to have authored or edited a major share of the Chinese classics.

In many ways, however, the last three centuries of the era did the most to cement the place and growth potential of the Han ethnicity. The Warring States period (traditional: 481-221 BCE) saw the often vicious final transition from a confederation of loosely-linked states to a centralized imperial model that would dominate Chinese history for two thousand years. The Qin (221-206 BCE) and Han (206 BCE-CE 220) helped cement the imperial model, and it would remain as reality or ideal for China from that time forward. Even during periods of disunion lasting up to three centuries, the model remained.

The Han ethnic majority played a sizable role in that history, and the growth of the Chinese state over the subsequent twenty centuries is a history of ethnic movement to and from the Yellow River drainage area, where most of China’s early history played out. From the Han dynasty forward, there is a continuous and never-ending engagement with territories and peoples of non-Han origin. It is one of the most dramatic themes of Chinese history, but it is underplayed in Chinese textbooks to such an extent that one might quite mistakenly assume Chinese history to be the history of the Han peoples. Beginning in the reign of Emperor Wu of Han (r. 141-87 BCE), however, major campaigns against the Xiongnu, to the north, as well as various territories to the southeast and southwest, spurred what would become a continuous mixing of ethnicities as territorial struggles gave way to alliances, linguistic modifications (on both sides), and, in many cases, cultural integration.

[d] Assimilation RF

This integration is often interpreted as a simplistic kind of assimilation, and textbooks not infrequently speak of the way that outsiders almost invariably adapted to Chinese (predominantly Han) culture. Far more rarely do they speak of significant changes that worked in the other direction—with “outsiders” (from the perspective of the narrative) deeply influencing Han culture. That this was so is indisputable, but it is often only tacitly acknowledged in history textbooks in the Chinese-speaking world. In fact, the cultural and linguistic blending was a constant in Chinese history, and it can be seen in two broad sets of movements.

The first came with pressures from the north, as peoples from northeastern and northwestern territories made incursions into China. Some of these, even as early as the Zhou period, were military incursions that forced Han Chinese out of their home territories. Others were part of the almost continual diplomatic give-and take between a centralized Chinese state and northern territorial groups. Intermarriage and various embassies played an enormous role in the cultural interactions between peoples.

The second major wave of interaction resulted from the combined results of territorial expansion, on the one hand, and northern territories being occupied by northerners, forcing Han peoples ever southward. This process, which can be seen even in Confucius’s Analects, accelerated in earnest in the first millennium of the Common Era. Large ethnic groups in the southeast were increasingly confronted by the growing commercial and governmental reach of the central state. Many dozens of ethnic groups in southwestern China also began a long process of acculturation at about this time.

Northern minority groups in fact, dominated the second millennium of China’s imperial era. The Mongols and the Manchus controlled two of the last three imperial dynasties—in every fashion, from military affairs to the imperial line itself—. The history of China is a history of ethnic adaptation and territorial expansion over 3,000 years in the regions between and beyond the Yellow and Yangzi Rivers.

[e] Beyond RF

Click here for other posts dealing with East Asian ethnic majorities:  

China 1       China 2       China 3       Japan 1       Japan 2       Japan 3       Korea 1       Korea 2       Korea 3