Have you ever wondered why China keeps being called China?

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Between a "Chinese", in three thousand, follow the ceaseless, meaning there are many rheological: from the pre-qin period "central region", "city", "" land" capital ", "middle" of han and tang dynasties "central plains", and then to the modern play for ZhuBang tied for national states in the name of the rest of the world, not only words in "China" inheriting the ceaseless, meaning "center" is a consistent.
The interpretation of the meaning of "China" shows the history of the formation of The Chinese concept of country and the concept of the world -- from "the center of the world" to "a member of the world", which is the symbol of the awakening of modern Chinese consciousness.
In the New Year, let's get to know "China" again!
Article | tian-yu feng Senior professors in the humanities and social sciences, wuhan university; Nie Changshun professor, Research Center for Traditional Chinese Culture, Wuhan University
Edit | Xie Fang outlook, a think-tank
This article is excerpted from the Book "Cultural History of thirty Key Words", published by China Social Sciences Press in August 2021. The original title is "China". The original text has been deleted and does not represent the views of Outlook Think Tank.

1
"China" gets its name
The word "China" appeared earlier in the early Zhou Dynasty. Unearthed in 1963 in Jia Village, Baoji County, Shaanxi Province, the early Western Zhou dynasty bronze ware "He Zun" (named "He", a sacrificial vessel for the clan and noble) has a 122 word inscription on its inner bottom, which describes that King Cheng of Zhou inherited The will of King Wu and built Cheng Zhou (today's Luoyang). The inscription reports that King Wu took his leave from the imperial court.
Since king Wu had conquered the merchant of dayi, he told heaven: Yu Qi was in China, so he just classed his people.
(After the King of Wu defeated the merchants, he made a sacrifice to heaven in the temple and said: I will live in China (the center of the world) and rule the people from there.)
This is the first special word "China" ever seen, which means "the center of the world".
This "dayi shang" refers to the Shang Dynasty (" Yi "training for" country "), because of the central plains, also known as "China", referred to as "China", Oracle scholar Hu Houxuan said: "Business and called the Chinese business, immediately after the origin of the Chinese title."
Therefore, King Wu of Zhou called himself "Zhongguo", which was the inheritance of "China" in shang Dynasty. "Shang Shu · Zhou Shu · Zi CAI", an earlier document handed down from ancient times, also used the word "China" in "The Book of Songs", "Zuo Zhuan" and "Mencius".
According to the statistics of scholars, the word "China" appeared 178 times in 25 kinds of pre-Qin classics -- 9 times in the meaning of "jing Shi", 17 times in the meaning of "guo territory", 145 times in the meaning of "Zhu Xia domain", and 6 times in the meaning of "zhong Zhi guo".
The original meaning of "China" is "central city", that is, the capital city where the Son of Zhou lived, which is symmetric with "four directions", as the Book of Songs · Minlao says:
People also work stop, can be well-off. Favor China, to appease all sides.
The people have worked hard enough, and it is time for them to enjoy themselves. Caress these Jing shi people, used to calm the quartet.
MAO explained: "China, the Capital also." "The People's Labor" appeared four times "benefit this China", its "China" all refers to the Capital. In the Warring States period, Mencius recalled that Shun won the hearts of the people and the will of God, "then the husband of China, practice the throne of the emperor."
The "China" in these use cases all refers to the capital of the world, that is, the Jingshi. The Peys' Records of the Historian Jie quotes Liu Xi (born about 160) of the Eastern Han Dynasty as saying: The emperors lived in China, so China was called.
The above example is the original meaning of "China" in The Capital, which has been extended in many ways later: at first it refers to the West Zhou Dynasty and The Jinggi region, and then it is developed into the Xia states, namely the central Plains region in the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River, which is the early wisdom of civilization and the early development of the country. Such as the spring and autumn biography of RAMS and load "of the north and south yi DE, if Chinese on line", "China" here means that the central plains region, the western zhou dynasty mainly includes song, wei, jin, qi ducal states, such as central plains the righteousness of "China" later on the regional development, including inside and outside the Great Wall, north to at mohe, south to the five ridges, hainan island, the west and green ridge, large range of east sea of lincang.
In addition, China also derived meaning, such as refers to the border; A middle kingdom; The middle Kingdom; And so on.
The most frequently used "China" of the above various meanings is the "China" which is symmetric with the "Four Yi".
For example, the Book of Songs · Xiaoya · Jun Preface says:
"Small elegant" waste, then four yi hand over invasion, China micro yi.
Liu Yiqing (403 -- 444) of the Song Dynasty of the Southern Dynasty wrote in His Book New Sayings of The World:
Jiang Left to promote, not as good as China.
All the examples of "China", all refer to the central Plains of the core area surrounded by four nations, namely the central state. Its synonyms are "middle earth", "Central Plains", "Zhongzhou", "Zhonghua", "Zhongxia", "Zhuxia", "Shenzhou", "Jiuzhou", "Hainei" and so on. The "China" commonly used in modern times refers to the multi-ethnic country with the Han nationality as the main body, taking the Chinese civilization as the source and the Chinese culture as the foundation.
2
The territory of historical interpretation
1. Territory changes
"China" is a historical concept whose signified domain changes constantly in the course of history.
In the mind of Chinese ancestors, the world was in the shape of a "round sky and a round earth". The ancients placed "China" in the center of this "round sky and a round earth". According to the theory of Zhou Dynasty, "China" is a square domain with the royal city (or wangji) as the core and the five services (Dian, Hou, bin, yao and huang) or the nine services (Hou, Nan, Dian, CAI, Wei, man, Yi, zhen and fan) as the outer edge, extending outwards layer by layer in the shape of "Hui", with a clear center and fuzzy edges.
[Note: "mourning" refers to the mourning system for the dead relatives, and the mourning time and mourning time indicate the consanguinity, distance and respect between relatives.]
In the early western zhou dynasty and spring and autumn period, "China" about in the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River and the huaihe river basin, including the zhou dynasty, the jin, zheng, qi, lu, song, wei, qin, chu and wu, the more it is not, to the spring and autumn period and the later period and the warring states period, the original said "barbarians" edge governors stronger, will "won the central plains", trying to dominate the "China". By the late Warring States period, the seven kingdoms were included in the scope of "China", and the "China" mentioned in xunzi and The Strategy of the Warring States included qin, Chu, Wu and Yue.

Simatai Section of the Great Wall. Graph | graph worm creativity
After the Qin dynasty was unified, the "China" extended to the vast area east of Lintao (now Gansu province) and beyond the Great Wall. Ban Gu (32 -- 92) said, "Qin Shihuang, however rong Di, built the Great Wall, the border of China, but the west could not reach Lintao."
After the Han and Tang dynasties, the scope of "China" expanded in space, which has been described in many official histories. Briefly speaking, "China" included a vast area under the jurisdiction of the imperial court from the southeast to the sea and from the northwest to quicksand. In the 24th year of emperor Qianlong of the Qing Dynasty (1759), China's territory was basically established: from Sayan Mountains in the north to The South China Sea Islands in the south, pamir Plateau in the west and Sakhalin Island in the east, covering an area of 13.8 million square kilometers.
After the middle of the 19th century, imperial powers seized large areas of China's territory, and the Chinese people's heroic defense of the territory prevented greater losses. Today, China has a land area of 9.6 million square kilometers, ranking third in the world, next only to Russia and Canada.
2. "There are no Kings outside"
Since the pre-Qin dynasty, the concept of "one kingdom under heaven" has been formed, believing that the prince of Heaven is the ruler of all the princes, and all the lands of the vassal states (outside) belong to the prince of Heaven (king). This is the concept of "the king has no outside world" in the territory of "China" (the emperor regards the world as one family, and all the four regions are under the rule of the king). This language from the "ram biography" : "The king of Heaven is living in Zheng. There are no Kings. What does it say? It can't be the mother."
The Qin and Han dynasties were unified, and the theory of "No king outside China" in the territory of "China" became even bigger. Eastern Han Dynasty Ban Gu "East fu" cloud: "knowledge letter valley can close, but I do not know the king of no outside also." Jin Ge Hong "bao Pu son · Yi Min" : "the king has no outside, the world is home, according to the sun and the moon, rain and dew, all its environment also." The "sun and moon shine, rain and dew" into the territory of China. The Tang and Song dynasties generally accepted this recognition, Du Fu said in his poem, "The king has no outside view of the present"; Song Tian Xiyun: "The south wanli, set all protect to huairou; Mobei Wuyuan, simple in the wild. Have to see the king without outside, book track datong."
Unification of culture leads to unification of the whole world, which is a popular concept in ancient China. It is believed that if there is a heart of "politeness", Yi Di will turn to "China", which is a way of thinking of "king without foreign" territory view. At the same time, The Chinese people also put the culture of the four barbarians, to achieve the emperor "everywhere home", is another way of thinking of "king no foreign" territory view.
This is "all under heaven, is the king's land; Forthrightness of the land, is the king's official "Chinese view of the shop. This grand but vague view of China has exerted a long influence and has been constantly revised in the course of history, gradually standardizing it into a more concrete and real framework of "China".
3
The culture of historical deduction
1. Geographic center -- Political Center -- Cultural Center
"China" originally refers to the middle reaches of the Yellow River (including fenhe, Weihe, Jinghe, Luohe and other tributaries of the river valley) this activity area of the Chinese people, people believed that it is located in the world, so "China" has the meaning of geographical center; Because the construction of the capital city, and derived from the political center; Due to the development of culture, it derives the meaning of cultural center.
When Prince Childe Cheng of the warring State of Zhao refuted King Wuling of Zhao (340 BC -- 295 BC) 's imitation of "Hufu riding archery", he said this about "China" :
In China, there is a place where wisdom and intelligence reside, where all wealth is used, where sages and sages are taught, where benevolence and righteousness are practiced, where poetry, books, rites and music are used, where sensitivity and skill are tested, where people from afar observe and travel, and where barbarians practice justice.
In the debate about the relationship between "China" and "barbarians" in the Zhao royal family, Childe Cheng elucidates the cultural connotation of "China". For more than two thousand years, people talked about "China" in this sense.
From the pre-Qin dynasty to the Han and Tang dynasties to the Ming and Qing Dynasties, this world concept centered on China and the international concept of the dualistic opposition between China and The Barbarians has been handed down and strengthened. "Four barbarians, all countries come to China" is the expectation of successive rulers of "China". Until modern times, the government and the opposition failed to get rid of this kind of egocentrism.
Dao Zhigang (1818 --?) On a visit to Europe in 1868 (when the Qing dynasty was forced to go to Thailand after being hit by two Opium Wars), He was asked about the meaning of "China" and replied:
China, not the situation of residence is also called. Since Fu Xi's drawing of the hexagrams came to China, yao, Shun, Yu, Tang, wen, Wu, Duke of Zhou, Confucius and Mencius have all been in the middle way since 4000 years ago.
He diluted the geographical meaning of "China" and strengthened its cultural meaning, interpreting "China" as "the middle way". Anyone who did not conform to the middle way would not be China. Zhigang said: "The English kingdom is extremely rich and powerful, and has a lot of concerns about holding profits".
2. Pluralism of civilization center and transfer of civilization center
In the era of "China, the world", there are some people with a rational attitude for their country to make the world positioning.
Since the Period of The Zhou and Qin Dynasties, The Chinese civilization expanded to the east, west, south and north, with the emergence of new flourishing areas of civilization and some degradation of the inherent civilization areas. This made the sober sages realize that "China" was not fixed and the central Plains was not always advanced. As the philosopher Gu Yanwu (1613 -- 1682) pointed out during the Ming and Qing Dynasties: "Through the customs of nine states, the history of the previous generation, China is not as good as the foreign countries have!"
There is a symmetry between "China" and "foreign country", and "foreign country" (referring to neighboring Yidi) exceeds China in some places.
Wang fuzhi gradually with guggenheim period (1619-1692), recognize the civilization center can be transferred, in his "reading TongJian theory" "ask record book, such as the" Chinese "and" DE "between the replacement made of wild status, this paper advanced use since the tang dynasty decline of the central plains, the wild south catch up the fact that can prove that Chinese tribes translocation, The acquisition and retention of the status of "China" is not a matter of nature, but a result of the evolution of culture.
Wang fuzhi also pointed out that China was not very civilized from the beginning, nor was China the only center of civilization, and he had an imaginative conjecture: the air of heaven and earth, the decline of prosperity and change of each other. Before tai Hao, Chinese people were like pere pere gathering birds. There must be a party such as Tang dynasty, Yu Dynasty and three generations of China.
It is a rational view of China and a pluralistic view of the generation of human civilization that people in ancient China gathered together like animals, and that some places under the sun and moon could have civilization just like the three generations of China.
In May 1981, tan Qixiang, a historical geographer, made several explanations on how to grasp the concept of "China" in the "Academic Symposium on the History of Ethnic Relations in China" :
First, our motherland is "created by the people of all nationalities, including the ethnic groups in the border region, and China in history cannot be equated with the Central Plains dynasty"; Second, "The ancients' China should not be regarded as the historical China, nor the scope of today's China should be defined as the scope of our historical China". Third, China "belongs to 56 ethnic groups, not just the Han nationality". It helps clarify the perception of "China".
4
China as one of the Nations
The informal name "China", as opposed to a foreign country, can be first seen in The Records of the Historian, in which Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty (156-87 BC) sent Zhang Qian (164-114 BC) on a diplomatic mission to the Western Regions:
The son of Heaven heard that Dayuan, Daxia and Benin were all big countries, with many strange things and indigenous people, quite on par with The Chinese... He ordered Qian to go out in four ways because Shu Qian was the envoy of the hair.
This usage of "China" as one of the countries in the world is also exemplified in the Han and Tang Dynasties. For example, the Book of the Later Han named "China" and "Tianzhu" (India). Tang Hui is called "China" and "Persia" and "Daqin" (Rome). But such use cases were rare.
The concept of "China", as a country equal to foreign countries, emerged in the Song Dynasty.
During the Han and Tang dynasties, the Central Plains dynasty and its neighbors maintained the relationship of canonization and worship between the feudal lords and their vassals. The Central Plains dynasty did not deal with the surrounding issues with the concept of equality. Song, otherwise, the northern xinjiang in a confrontation of qidan and the tangut qiang established the liao dynasty and the tangut, are the two laws of system, the original text and proclaimed himself, and at war for a long time of song dynasty, song dynasty lose again and again, so that every years old COINS, middle kingdom, had to put down the shelves, and to peer state-to-state relations with liao and western xia affairs, Therefore, the word "China" used by song People has a clear national meaning.
Shi Jie (1005-1045), one of the "three Masters" of the Early Song Dynasty, made his first monograph on "China" :
Those who live in the middle of heaven and earth are called China; those who live on the side of heaven and earth are called the Four barbarians. Four yi outside also, China inside also.
Four barbarians in four barbarians, China in China, each without confusion.
Although Shi Jie still held the concept of "foreign and domestic", there were already separate national boundaries, stressing independence from each other and "no conflict between each other". After the Song Dynasty, the term "China" gradually changed from culturalism to national meaning.
A dynasty called itself "China", beginning with the Yuan Dynasty. The envoys sent to Japan by Kublai Khan (1215-1294) called their country "China" and listed neighboring countries such as Japan, Goryeo, Annam and Burma as "Wai Yi". The Ming and Qing Dynasties followed this world view of The Chinese as "foreign and domestic", and sometimes used the word "China" in this sense, but it was not officially the name of the country.
In modern times, Chinese people have gradually changed from "observing the sky and sitting in the well in the past" to "surveying the sea and peering into the sea", and their view of China has changed.
Zheng Guanying (1842-1922) of the late Qing Dynasty broke through the traditional concept that "there is no other king" and China is "one" in the world, and pointed out that Chinese people must "regard their country as one of the nations" in order to change the predicament of "being alone and helpless".
In 1901, Liang Qichao said that there were three weak people who "originated from the mistake of ideal" in China. The second one was "they did not know the boundary between the state and the imperial court. One of the strangest things about China is that it has hundreds of trillion people in the world for thousands of years, yet so far no country has a name. Husband said ** also, said The Chu Dan also, said the chai take also, is his people so call me, rather than our national pretentious name also. Tang Yu, Xia, Shang and Zhou, Qin, Han, Wei and Jin, Song, Qi, Liang, Chen, Sui and Tang, Song, Yuan, Ming and Qing also, are all dynasty names, but not the name of the country. For thousands of years, there was no state, but there was a court."
In the same year, Liang Qichao again complained bitterly in Narration of Chinese History:
Nothing is more ashamed of us than the fact that our country has no name.
With no country name associated with, there is no national flag, no national anthem and other embarrassing situation, to modern times gradually changed, "China" as a country name began to be established.
5
The "China" of nation-State
The concept of "China" in the sense of nation-state came into being when it established treaty relations with modern European countries.
In the 17th century, Europe began to form nation states and established the modern international order based on them. After the Thirty Years' War in Europe, Spain, the Holy Roman Empire, the Habsburg Dynasty of Austria, the Bourbon Dynasty of France, Sweden and other countries held a conference in Westphalia, Germany today, and signed the Peace treaty of Westphalia, recognizing the territory, sovereignty and national independence of each country. This was the beginning of the confirmation of the nation state and was praised as one of the 100 events that affected the world.
The Qing dynasty in distant East Asia was completely unaware of the major events taking place in Europe, but because it was dealing with western nation-states (such as Russia) that were completely different from those surrounding it, it needed a formal name to correspond with it, and "China" was the first choice. Such international relations first took place between Qing And Russia.
Peter I's (1672 -- 1725) Russian Cossack cavalry expanded eastward and were met by emperor Kangxi's (1654 -- 1722) Qing army in the upper Amur. After the war the port Chu Treaty was signed in 1689. The treaty began with the post titles for the Qing envoys in Manchu. "The Great Emperor of China sent Suegu, minister of Boundary Division, Minister of Bodyguard, Minister of State Affairs", corresponding to golovin, former Minister of the Palace of Wolus (that is, Russia) in the later text, the Kangxi Dynasty revised the Monument of Packing The Rosha Strategic Boundary, stating that "the Erguna River that will flow into heilongjiang is the boundary: The south bank of the river belongs to China, and the north bank belongs to Erosh. "China" is the name of the country corresponding to Erosh (Russia).
At the end of the 17th century, the Establishment of treaty relations between The Qing Dynasty and Russia was a rare case. Since then, the Qing government still dealt with foreign affairs within the framework of the "Huayi Order". For example, in the correspondence between Emperor Qianlong (1711 -- 1799) and King George III (1738 -- 1820) on his 80th birthday, the British Kingdom wrote "Greetings to the Supreme Monarch of China qianlong". Many times called the Qing side as "China", and The Qianlong Emperor fu George III book never called his country as "China", the whole pretenses "Heaven". This situation has been extended to the correspondence between Emperor Jiaqing (1760-1820) and King George III.
It can be seen that until the first Opium War, the Chinese government and the opposition only had the view of "the world" and "The Heaven", instead of the national and international view of equal rights.
In the middle of the 19th century, the western colonial powers opened the closed door of the Qing Dynasty, and the classical "Hua Yi order" was replaced by the modern "world state order". "China" was increasingly used as the name of a country equal to foreign countries, and its meaning of "among the four yi" gradually faded.
Chinese "China" written in formal diplomatic documents, first in daoguang twenty-two years on the 4th of July 2 (on August 29, 1842) in English and signed by the jiangning treaty (known as "nanjing treaty"), the treaty of both the "qing" and "British" is symmetrical, and "China" and "British" symmetrical, and multiple occurrences of "official" in China "Chinese businessmen". Since then, the Qing Dynasty signed treaties with foreign countries in the name of "China". For example, in the Treaty of Wangxia between China and the United States, "China" corresponded to "United States", and "Chinese people" corresponded to "united citizens".
In modern times, China was facing the threat of invasion from the eastern and western powers, and its economic and social life was increasingly integrated into the world's unified market. The conceited concept of "China is the world" formed in a closed environment was increasingly showing its disadvantages. The consciousness of "nation-state" with modern significance came into being to strive for equal state-to-state relations and a just international order.
And a country to stand on its own among the nations of the world, it is very important to have a proper country name, "China" as a long spread, women and children know the concise title, is used by the government. Liang Qichao and Wang Kangnian (1860-1911) urged to discard the false view that China was "under heaven", but believed that the name "China", which had been in ancient times, could continue to be used to conform to traditional habits and stimulate the national spirit.
The rise of anti-colonialism and anti-imperialist movements in modern times endowed "China" with patriotic connotations.
On September 24, 1900, Ziqiang wrote "On Independence", saying, "China, our Chinese people's China, is not acquired by others but preserved; To protect China, it is our own responsibility, not acquired by others." Since then, this sentence pattern has been widely used. In 1905, he wrote in The Strategy of Tong Meng Hui: "China is the Chinese, China is the Chinese; China's politics are up to the Chinese." This is to call for "China" in the sense of modern nation state and gradually become a national consensus.
Liang Qichao wrote "Young China", singing:
Beautiful my young China, and the day is not old! Zhuang zai my Chinese youth, and the country without borders!
The 1911 Revolution overthrew the Qing Dynasty, and the Republic of China was founded on New Year's Day in 1912, known internationally as the Republic of China, referred to as "China", in English as China. Since then, "Zhongguo" has become the official name of the modern concept of a country.
October 1, 1949, the People's Republic of China was founded, also with "China" as its short name. Phrases such as "The Chinese people" and "the Chinese government" became popular around the world.
The name "China" has been used continuously in the past three thousand years. Its meaning has changed from "land of Beijing" and "four barbines" in the beginning to "Central Plains" and "Middle lands", and even to the official national title of "one of the nations" in modern times. The interpretation of the meaning of "China" shows the history of the formation of The Chinese concept of country and the concept of the world -- from "the center of the world" to "a member of the world", which is the symbol of the awakening of modern Chinese consciousness.
Commend library uncle book

The Cultural History of thirty Key Words
China Social Sciences Press
Thirty books capture keywords, according to the generating mechanism, divided into classical, semantic tongjia characters, borrow deformation of righteousness, to create a new name, all Chinese words, actuality, dislocation six categories, on time and space coordinates of ancient and modern things, recover the generation and evolution of the concept of puts Chen yinque "that explain a word is a cultural history".