Comments by "Alan Friesen" (@alanfriesen9837) on "Chinese Doesn't Exist" video.

Yeah, the term "Chinese" should be used similarly to the term "American". Chinese are the people of China regardless of ethnicity. The main ethnicity in China is Han which itself is an accretion of diverse peoples assimilated in ancient times.
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@taocry Actually I do. You may misunderstand my point though. I'm not suggesting that Chinese are constituted of immigrants to the region or that they have liquidated the original inhabitants, both of which accurately describe America. What I'm suggesting is that all the people of China, whether Han, Zhuang, Hui, Man, Uyger, Miao, Yi, Tujia, Zang, Mongol, Dong, Bouyei, Yao, Bai, Chosin, Hani, Li, Kazak, Dai She, Lisu, etc., etc., etc., or immigrant foreigner, they all belong to China and they are all Chinese. That's the same attitude we have in America, at least those of us who are not racist nationalists.
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@taocry China definitely practices a form of affirmative action to benefit its minorities and I know there is some disgruntlement felt by those who don't directly benefit from those policies. It's not so much about justice as it is about making sure that Chinese ethnic minorities feel like they have a place and a future in China so that they don't develop strong ethnocentric nationalist sentiments which could hypothetically threaten the integrity of the country. It's a delicate balancing act by the central government but there are enough examples around the world today of destabilizing tribalism to warrant the policies. If you have missed out on opportunities because of this policy then I sympathize with you personally. But you should take some pride in the fact that your sacrifice will help strengthen your country and keep it together. I'm sorry if that's cold comfort.
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@taocry I don't for a moment doubt the existence of the Han ethnicity. I do argue that Han ethnicity is composed of the descendants of many smaller ethnic groups that were once separate and in some cases competing nationalities. The one group I'm familiar with are the Shu of Sichuan but I know there are several others. The argument you made in another post that this is true of most if not all modern nationalities, I would agree with. Modern Germans are the descendants of Goths, Franks, Teutons and Saxons. Modern French are descendants of Franks, Gauls, Burgundians and Normans among others. The descendants of these groups in China have considered themselves one ethnicity for hundreds and in many cases thousands of years and over time most of China's current minorities will probably merge in as well. There's nothing wrong with this; in fact it brings stability to the lives of hundreds of millions of people. If I've inadvertently insulted you then I apologize.
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