Chinese elites fused race and culture to make biology primary

Evidence

If socially constructed “races” are population groups which are imagined to have boundaries based on real or imagined biological characteristics, and if they can be contrasted to socially constructed “ethnicities,” which are population groups thought to be based on culturally acquired characteristics, then both were seen to be coterminous by political elites in modern China: ideas of “culture,” “ethnicity,” and “race,” in other words, were often conflated by political and intellectual elites in order to represent cultural features as secondary to, and derivative of, an imagined racial specificity. — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 3298 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

It is not suggested here that race was the only significant form of identity available in China, but that notions of ethnicity, nation, and race have often been conflated in the politics of nationalism. — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 3358 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: China’s founding nationalist ideology grounded national identity in biological race; Twelfth-century Chinese accounts blended biological and cultural markers of Africans; Chinese elites conflated race and ethnicity to make culture derive from blood — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 3298 (+15 more)

Broader Connections

• Chinese elites conflated race and ethnicity to make culture derive from blood #corroborates (0.95) — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 3298
• Chinese nationalism has persistently conflated ethnicity, nation, and race #corroborates (0.92) — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 3358