ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that the representation of the ‘minority’ in China reflects the objectivizing of a ‘majority’ nationality discourse that parallels the valorization of gender and political hierarchies. It examines the opening minutes of the evening’s program immediately reveals the crucial role minority peoples play in the contemporary construction of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). After the PRC was founded in 1949, the state embarked upon a monumental endeavor to identify and recognize as nationalities those who qualified among the hundreds of groups applying for national minority status. Extremely realistic is the figure painting Nude with Apples by Tang Muli, a Han artist who has travelled widely abroad. As Han-ness is related to ‘whiteness’, so the majority in China is invented as an unmarked category, courtesy of a subjugated, stigmatized, and identified minority. Symbolic tribute by minorities becomes an important link with China’s past, establishing their own feudal pasts, and a signal of who will lead the future.
