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The issue of all these diverse names for 'Chinese' converging into just 1 term in English is a paramount one in the realm of Chinese, Taiwanese, and HK politics that I have had to tirelessly explain to Westerners and Chinese people alike throughout all of last year and even now. https://twitter.com/intewig/status/1317647865452191745
I have been meaning to compose a thread breaking down each of these names & their significance in political discourse for a while now, but I am glad to see @jeannette_ng beat me to it. Below I will add my own understandings. https://twitter.com/jeannette_ng/status/1320036798479978497
Out of the whole thread, this is the only part that I am deeply critical of. 中國 is best translated not as 'middle kingdom' but as 'central state' for the following reasons: https://twitter.com/jeannette_ng/status/1320048787977633799
1. 國 by itself means only 'state', regardless of government type, not 'kingdom' which would be 王國. (For non-Chinese readers of this thread, 王 means 'king') If 國 meant 'kingdom', then our names for 'United States' 美國 and 'republic' 共和國 would not make sense.
I'm sure this is already known by most Chinese people, but I continue to see you guys promoting this mistranslation, and I'm not sure why. Perhaps it is because the inaccuracy doesn't seem significant, but in my opinion, it certainly is.
From the perspective of the anti-monarchical revolutionaries who toppled the Qing, it would not have made sense to continue calling their country a 'kingdom', notwithstanding that the Qing was ruled not by a king but an emperor, a critical difference in Chinese political history.
2. If the ancient origins of the name 中國 is to be understood as connoting this concept of a civilized 'center of the world' as opposed to the 'barbarian' peripheries, then 中 might as well be translated as 'central' not 'middle'.
'Central' is simply better for this geographical, cultural, and political sense whereas 'middle' tends to have a more temporal meaning, e.g. 'Middle Ages'. In the context of Egyptian history, Middle Kingdom also refers to a period of dynasties.
3. Last but not least, I have my suspicions that there is an underlying orientalism to the translation of 中國 as 'middle kingdom', in the way it has historically been used to artistically characterize China as an exotic but medieval and feudal land.
I will confess that at the time of this post, I do not have firm research on hand to back this up, hence I can only call my sentiment 'suspicions' at best. IIRC, it is a translation dating as far back as the 16th or 17th century which has never worn off or been updated.
Moving on from this translation issue, 中國人 is certainly the most politicized out of every name here. It is unfortunate that it is so often taught as this default translation of 'Chinese', when it really refers only to PRC nationals. https://twitter.com/jeannette_ng/status/1320048787977633799
Although the etymology of 中國 is ancient, the concept as it stands today is recent, arising out of the Qing's imperialistic rebranding of 'China' as a 'nation-state' in which all their subjects, whether Tibetan, Uighur, Mongol, even Han and Manchu had to subsume into.
Even after the Qing fell, that specter persists with the People's Republic of China seeking to inherit that nation of 中國 to justify its own imperialistic endeavors. In my eyes then, the name 中國 as it has evolved cannot be removed from imperialism.
But we take it for granted to be *the* translation of 'China', which in English doesn't necessarily refer only to the 'nation' invented by the Qing but also to a cultural civilization.
I don't wish to tangent into a debate over the value & rationale of having a concrete concept of a 'Chinese civilization' and what that encompasses, but a 1:1 translation of 中國人 as 'Chinese' and 中國 as 'China' creates severe barriers in cross-cultural communication.
A critical example is when we Hong Kongers insist we are not 中國人, but this gets translated into English—often even by Hong Kongers—as "we are not Chinese". This only serves as fuel for tankies & CCP propagandists to allege that we "wish to create a new ethnicity".
Because the English word 'Chinese', especially for the diaspora, more often than not means 華人 or 唐人 and not 中國人. So what do these other names mean and what are the issues involved with them?
華人 (Waa/Hua people) refers to people who are of Chinese cultural heritage. My personal interpretation is that it is less technical about ethnicity than 漢人 (Han people) even though people usu. tell me it refers to ethnic Chinese all the same. https://twitter.com/jeannette_ng/status/1320046127522119680
A common confusion over the meaning of 華人 is that whereas some Mainlander or HK people tell me it refers only to Overseas Chinese, most Overseas Chinese I have asked, even elderly ones who emigrated late in their life, tell me it is not exclusive to the diaspora.
Instead, they treat it as encompassing Mainlanders, HK people, Taiwanese, and Overseas Chinese people alike, as a convenient, politically neutral name. I have also met at least one Taiwanese use it in this way.
The discrepancy in interpretation is a result of 華人 being a commonly used term overseas but rare in the Mainland and HK as a self-identifier, where the latter will grow up understanding it as unique to the diaspora. I will explore a similar problem in the name 唐人 later.
Moreover, 華人 may be seen as derivative of or synonymous with 華僑 and 華裔, terms which do necessarily refer to the overseas diaspora. https://twitter.com/jeannette_ng/status/1320046684076900352
唐人 is similar in function to 華人 in referring to Chinese people regardless of political or national affiliation, but it differs in being most popular among Cantonese speakers and also far more common colloquially. https://twitter.com/jeannette_ng/status/1320039931360825344
As Jeannette notes, there can be an implication of non-CCP or non-PRC using 唐人, but far more than that, I find it can evoke a tender feeling of common community with Cantonese-speakers from the Mainland when used as a Hong Konger. https://twitter.com/jeannette_ng/status/1320041977359060992
In Overseas Chinese communities where Cantonese culture is predominant, I find that the name 唐人 is closely tied with this melding of identity between Hong Kongers & Cantonese-speakers from Guangdong, where a shared Cantonese culture renders PRC nationalism inert.
B/c 唐人 is most often used by Cantonese speakers, other Chinese people may or may not associate with the name. Southern users of 唐人 may see it as encompassing northern Chinese & Taiwanese people as well while northern Chinese sometimes argue it refers only to Cantonese people.
This is a similar problem to that encountered with 華人. I was once asked by a Manchu if I would call northern Chinese 唐人 and even if it would apply to him. I could not give a definite answer.
Apart from this, I want to clarify that I have read at least one theory that the name's popularity with southerners actually stems not from the 'golden' Tang dynasty but from the later, minor state in the south of the same name.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Tang
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Tang
I cannot verify which theory is true, but in any case, I don't think it's accurate to say that the name is favored by southerners b/c the "Tang conquered further south than the Han" b/c to my knowledge, their territorial extent down south was about the same?
Instead, the Han Chinese population south extending to modern Guangdong swelled after the fall of the Han dynasty from the masses of refugees fleeing from wars in the north, esp. after "barbarian" states splintered off from the Jin in the wake of the War of Eight Princes.
