ABSTRACT
The processes of dealing with ethnic and cultural difference and managing Chinese migration overseas have been closely intertwined with the history of China. The expansion of China was in many ways the result of the policies towards populations outside its core and its orientations towards overseas trade and migration. The way China’s leaders viewed these policies and acted them out shaped the development of China as a national and regional power. In other words, the history of the conceptual formation of the overseas Chinese and ethnic minorities is closely related to the processes of China’s transformation from the empire to the nation-state. And so, a historical overview of China’s conceptual formulation of overseas Chinese and ethnic minorities and of policies toward them sheds light on the dynamics of China’s formation as a multinational state.
