Zhonghua minzu

Zhonghua minzu (Chinese: 中華民族; pinyin: Zhōnghuá mínzú; Wade–Giles: Chung¹-hua² min²-tsu²) is a political term in modern Chinese nationalism related to the concepts of nation-building, ethnicity, and race in the Chinese nationality. Collectively, the term refers to the 56 ethnic groups of China, but being a part of the Zhonghua minzu does not mean one must have Chinese nationality (Chinese: 中国国籍; pinyin: Zhōngguó guójí) and thus have an obligation to be loyal to the People's Republic of China (PRC).

Zhonghua minzu was established during the early Beiyang (1912–1927) periods to include Han people and four major non-Han ethnic groups: the Manchus, Mongols, Hui, and Tibetans, under the notion of a republic of five races (Wǔzú gònghé). Conversely, Sun Yat-sen and the Kuomintang (KMT) envisioned it as a unified composite of Han and non-Han people. It differs from the word Hanzu (Chinese: 漢族; pinyin: Hànzú; Wade–Giles: Han⁴-tsu²), a word is only used to refer to the Han Chinese.

Zhonghua minzu was initially rejected in the People's Republic of China (PRC) but resurrected after the death of Mao Zedong to include Han Chinese alongside 55 other ethnic groups as a collective Chinese family. Since the late 1980s, the most fundamental change of the PRC's nationalities and minorities policies is the renaming from Zhongguo renmin (中国人民; 'the Chinese people') to Zhonghua minzu (中华民族; 'the Chinese nation'), signalling a shift away from a multinational communist people's statehood of China to one multi-ethnic Chinese nation state with one single Chinese national identity.