Chinese nationalists imagined race as a self-expanding circle of unity against outsiders

Evidence

When men love their race, solidarity will arise internally, and what is outside will be repelled. Hence, to begin with, lineages were united and other lineages repelled; next, lineages of villages were united and lineages of other villages repelled; next, tribes were united and other tribes were repelled; finally, the people of a country became united, and people of other countries were repelled. This is the general principle of the races of the world, and also a major reason why races engender history. I will demonstrate to my countrymen, to allow them to form their own impression, how our yellow race, the yellow race of which the Han race is part, is able to unite itself and repel intruders. — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 3324

Categorization

• XREF: Zou Rong’s nested-ring model of solidarity anticipates the concentric ‘concentric circles’ accounts of identity (e.g., Luo/Fei Xiaotong on Chinese social relations) and echoes Thucydides-style escalation logic.