ABSTRACT
Society is a product of the relations among people. The assimilation of humans into society gives people diverse status in different historical stages and in different societies and nations. The assorted labels of subjects, nationals, peoples, citizens, and so forth, precisely reflect this process of historical socialization. In traditional Chinese society, imperial power was supreme. This also formed the basis of a political culture deeply affecting two very different groups: the ministers and the common people. The notion of groups here is equivalent to the West’s notion of assemblages that are formed by autonomous individuals, as in contemporary civic associations and political parties. Contemporary citizenship gradually evolved through the historical process of the development of a commodity economy, the formation of the theory of bourgeois democracy, and the establishment of the capitalist system. The consciousness of citizenship in China did not develop naturally out of the history of Chinese society and intellectual culture.
