Intellectual Contestation over China’s Multiethnic Regime

• Applicant: Dr. Sinan Chu
• Subject Area: Political Science ; Asian Studies
• Term: since 2024
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 536620936

This research project will critically examine the post-Mao intellectual discourse over multiethnic regime in the People’s Republic of China so to shed light on its recent assimilationist and autocratic tendency and to extrapolate and appraise various culturally situated strategies of intellectual contestation in today’s PRC. The last decade has witnessed an accelerated shift towards assimilation and autocratization in China’s approach to its vast ethnic minority population. Studies of ethnic politics in the PRC have traditionally treated the party-state as the central actor in creating a basket of policies and institutions collectively known as the “ethnic policy”. Yet, as critical, particularly post-positivist, research on public and foreign policy has pointed out, the broader social and cultural contexts are as important as political interests, institutional processes, and personal traits of decision-makers for understanding how policies are made and why they are made in a specific way. Situated at the intersection between Comparative Authoritarianism, Political Theory, and Chinese Intellectual History, this project will advance a nuanced understanding of the assimilationist shift in the PRC multiethnic regime as both contingent upon the social, political, and cultural context of post-Mao China and contested in multiple domains of societal discourse. Drawing from the theoretical and methodological insight of Critical Constructivism, Comparative Political Theory, and New Sinology, the project will analyze the shifting PRC multiethnic regime by critically examining the broader societal discussion on ethnic politics inside China, particularly the dissenting voices. It will closely examine how Chinese intellectuals drew upon different philosophical, theoretical, and cultural resources while adapting, appropriating, and rearticulating ideas in engaging with the topic. In doing so, the project will enable a holistic understanding of the shifting PRC multiethnic regime, shed light on the critical-mindedness and agency of contemporary Chinese intellectuals, and advance our understanding of intellectual praxis and knowledge production in a non-western context.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants