From the "Tianxia" State to the Nation-State: Cognition and Practice in Historical China

The roots of China's idea of ​​a multi-ethnic unified country can be traced back to the Chinese people's original understanding of the world, to the contractual relationship established between humans and natural gods based on this understanding, and in order to abide by this contractual relationship, the understanding of the relationship between people, between individuals, communities, societies, and countries, between culture and politics, between authority and power, and between national attributes and cultural attributes. Only on the basis of this macroscopic understanding can we correctly grasp the historical context of China's multi-ethnic unified country, understand the development and evolution of China's multi-ethnic unified country thought in various eras, understand the ethnic relations in each era and the gains and losses of various regimes' policies to deal with ethnic issues, and then think about the reasons for the occurrence of modern ethnic issues and find the key to deconstructing modern ethnic issues.