뉴스레터

China's 'Unified Multiethnic Nation Theory' unfairly claims that all other national communities that rose and fell in the past within the present territory of China were under the rule and control of Chinese dynasties even though China's historical territory and its governed area were different from its present territory. A more severe problem is that such position is reflected in the country's history textbooks that should have been based on the truth.

The purpose of this book was to investigate how 'the Unified Multiethnic Nation Theory' is reflected in Chinese history textbooks, what problems the theory has, and how to respond to it in order to provide a basis for dealing with the problem of the nationalistic history distortion in Chinese history textbooks.

Preparation of countermeasures based on logical theories

'The Unified Multiethnic Nation Theory' of China is based on the theory of a unified pluralistic society claiming that China consists of diverse ethnic communities while each community maintains independence and equal rights. It views that China has progressed as 'a unified multiethnic nation' throughout the history. As guidelines of this theory is reflected in Chinese history textbooks, there are a lot of errors found in the textbooks such as distortion of facts, illogical descriptions of the boundary of a nation or China and excessive beautification of Chinese history. And the situation develops into creating conflicts of history between China and its neighboring countries including Korea.

In order to solve this problem in a reasonable way, diplomatic responses from relevant government authorities will be necessary of course. However, it is also necessary to further strengthen various responses of nongovernmental bodies and academic research activities. It could be the most efficient way of response to demonstrate the contradictory nature of the theory by thoroughly analyzing the 'Unified Multiethnic Nation Theory', verifying specific historical facts, developing logical theories and pointing out its problems.

As a counter-response through such academic activities, the four authors of this book studied 'the Unified Multiethnic Nation Theory' including the background of its appearance, research results, descriptions in history textbooks based on the theory and its contradictory nature. The authors attempted to explain the theory by investigating the background of its appearance and analyzing descriptions in textbooks based on the theory.

〈China's ethnological studies and the appearance of the 'Unified Multiethnic Nation Theory'〉 contains an outline of the studies of the Han nation and the Chinese nation, the theoretical background of the 'Unified Multiethnic Nation Theory' and the history descriptions and historical periods according to ''The Unified Multiethnic Nation Theory'. It reveals that China's 'Unified Multiethnic Nation Theory' appeared in the background of the national integration theory based on the socialist view of the nation, the Chinese nation consists of the integrated ethnic communities through this national integration theory, the nation is unified with each ethnic community having equal rights according to the theory of a unified pluralistic society, the Chinese nation has existed as a 'Unified Multiethnic Nation' for thousands of years in its history, and therefore the Chinese history has to be reedited with such a point of view. Before we explore the logic to respond to the 'Unified Multiethnic Nation Theory', we will first have to understand its background and how it has been applied in different contexts.

Analyzing problems with the descriptions in China's history textbooks

〈A review of Korean researches on the 'Unified Multiethnic Nation Theory' – centering around researches on Chinese history textbooks〉 outlined the history education courses in China, the system of China's history textbooks and the actual reflections of the 'Unified Multiethnic Nation Theory' in China's history textbooks before it reviewed Korean researches on the theory in two categories: researches on territory and researches on nation. Even though a significant number of researches have been conducted in Korea on the unified multiethnic nation theory, no real effort has been made in details to put together past researches. Therefore, such an arrangement of research results will be used for developing logics in response to the logical problem of the Chinese theory and also for future academic approaches.

〈An analysis of the 'Unified Multiethnic Nation Theory in Chinese history textbooks – centering around relations of nations prior to the modern period〉 discusses how the educational contents in relation to nations have changed in 〈Guidelines on History Education〉 and 〈Standards for History Courses〉 and further discusses how the descriptions in relation to nations have changed in history textbooks accordingly. Then the paper analyzes the problems in the ethnological arguments in the 'Unified Multiethnic Nation Theory', paying attention to the Han nation centered view of history and its contradiction with the socialist view of nation. It discusses in detail how the 'Unified Multiethnic Nation Theory' has been reflected in Chinese history textbooks and further analyzes how contradictions exist in the descriptions on the pre-modern period of China made according to the guidelines.

〈An analysis of the 'Unified Multiethnic Nation Theory' appearing in Chinese history textbooks – centering around descriptions on the modern and contemporary periods〉, which was written by me, extracted some of the actual descriptions reflecting the 'Unified Multiethnic Nation Theory' from Chinese history textbooks in two groups: middle school and high school textbooks. Then it discusses the logical problems of those descriptions in terms of: territory and boundary expansion, China centered description, and the imbalance in descriptions of ethnic matters. The work reveals that the 'Unified Multiethnic Nation Theory' has not just affected the pre-modern period but has penetrated into the modern and contemporary periods as well.

We cannot see it as a problem that Chinese authorities adopt the 'Unified Multiethnic Nation Theory' in efforts to integrate and maintain the present China more efficiently as the country is consisting of various ethnic communities. Every nation in the present world is a unified multiethnic nation to some extent and therefore any nation can seek to maximize its national ability by reinforcing its integration and unification. However, we will have to respond in detail with academic methods of history to their ahistorical attitudes appearing in their distortion of historical facts and attempts to fit contradictory logics together. In this respect, the papers in this book will be useful.

However, improvement is still needed in some areas including: more accurate and precise approaches required to terms like 'patriotic ideas', 'nationalism', 'nation' and 'patriotism'; and a need to present more in-depth logics in response to China's 'Unified Multiethnic Nation Theory'. I hope future researches will make satisfactory improvements in these areas.