ABSTRACT
Minorities, as discursively essential elements in the construction of the Chinese territorial state, are at the same time potential sources of threat to the unity of the state. The existence of minorities – or, more specifically, backward minorities – allows the process of “civilization” to continue while, on the other hand, this process reinforces minorities’ images of backwardness. “Civilizing” projects enliven China in the sense that the scope of these projects is restricted to territorial China and therefore they create a discursive boundary between the inside and the outside of that nation. China must be reproduced repeatedly to camouflage the embarrassing fact that ethnic boundaries do not precisely coincide with the country’s borders and that not all minorities are culturally harmonious with everyone else inside the borders. Those who act in the name of China and those who belong to ethnic categories are constantly negotiating and renegotiating how to perform Chinese citizenship. While different interpretations and practices may give a variety of meanings to the notion of China, depending on the issues, personalities, localities, and time points involved, they all collude in essentializing China as an unquestionable, authentic entity.
