Ethnic Groups In Southwest Of Republic Of China

Since the Late Qing and Republic of China period, with the end of the monarchy, China has undergone a gradually shift from the traditional dynastic system to the modern nation-state system. For the southwest region of China (including Yunnan, Guizhou, Sichuan, Sikang), it means that the opportunity appeared to end only playing a marginal role in the pattern of the "one center, four edge" or "Pattern of Chinese-Barbarain". However, China's nation-state building is not easy. On one hand, the colonial activities of the Western powers continue to exist and seeks to strengthen, which makes the nation-state building of multi-ethnic region in the southwest, facing the interference or influence of external forces; the other hand, China has no government can command all over the country, which makes the multi-ethnic in southwest encountered many difficulties in the integration process with the State.It can be said that the southwest region still shows a multi-ethnic, a variety of social forms and multi-cultural situations in Republic of China period. The government and intellectuals sought to change the situation, they hope to replace local consciousness and diversity culture of the Southwest ethnic groups through the building of national culture. To this end, the government introduced a series of policies and a number of initiatives; intellectuals published a large number of research results and put forward a number of solutions. Overall, however, during the Republic of China period, social and cultural conditions of the Southwest ethnic groups almost did not change much, which show that mainstream society did not achieve the goal of governance of the Southwest region.In fact, people at that time is not enough awareness on the Southwest led to the situation. Not only ordinary people, even intellectuals and officials, just after the outbreak of the anti-Japanese war, began to contact with the Southwest directly, and they carried out a number of field surveys in the Southwest. Unfortunately, in the mainstream discourse, ethnic diversity and complexity of the Southwest is either not taken seriously, or willful neglect. Therefore, to solve the integration problems of the Southwest and the state, first of all have to start from the understanding and recognition of the Southwest and its culture.Of course, the combing of historical documents and field investigations, the Government of the Republic of China and scholars have not yet obtained a uniform or consistent understanding to species and classification of ethnic groups in the Southwest, but, on doubt, They've got a deeper and more specific understanding of ethnic groups in the Southwest than ever before. Therefore, referenced to contemporary research results, paper also summarized the classification and cognitive of the Southwest ethnic group which made by the people at that time, in order to show the specific circumstances of the process of the nation-state building in the Southwest. In other words, Describe the specific circumstances of the ethnic groups in Southwest of the Republic of China, is the prerequisite and basis for the study.Based on the description and presentation of the specific circumstances of the Southwest ethnic groups, the paper is to analyze the pattern of inter-ethnic relationship and the factors that affect ethnic relations, and then explore the practice of nation-state building in the southwest region, the construction of identity of the Southwest, the intergration between the Southwest ethnic group and the State.In addition, the reflection of the Government of the Republic of China's National Theory and Policy and in search of the ins and outs of some contemporary problem of the ethnic groups in the Southwest are also an important part of the paper.