[ (We Chinese in America) Media Editor Tang Zhao, October 12, 2022]    Xi Jinping, the president of China, has embraced a vision of national unity that seeks to use the country's ethnic groups into one with a shared heritage dating back 5,000 years. 

As Xi prepares to claim a groundbreaking third term in power, he has effectively appointed himself China’s historian in chief, crafting a story — retold in museums, on television shows and in journals — that casts his authoritarian agenda as a fulfillment of ancient values.

Appeals to the motherland have long been a part of the Communist Party’s tool kit, but Xi has taken the approach to new heights, calling for a unified “community of Chinese nationhood” as a bulwark against internal divisions and threats from the West.

The government has increased funding for historical and archaeological research, but it comes with pressure for researchers’ findings to reflect the official narrative. Under Xi, schools have increasingly demanded that pupils be educated almost exclusively in Chinese, rather than in local languages. And nation-building spectacles — grandiose, often far-fetched recreations of ancient rituals — have grown more elaborate and more prominent across China.

At a time when the U.S., Russia, India and other countries have experienced their own resurgent nationalism, Xi’s vision is aimed at inoculating China against unwelcome influences, especially from the West.

(Source: New York Times)

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