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Greater China

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Greater China
Chinese name
Traditional Chinese大中華
Simplified Chinese大中华
Transcriptions
Standard Mandarin
Hanyu PinyinDà Zhōnghuá
Bopomofoㄉㄚˋ ㄓㄨㄥˉ ㄏㄨㄚˊ
Wade–GilesTa4 Chung1-hua2
IPA[tâ.ʈʂʊ́ŋ.xwâ]
Yue: Cantonese
JyutpingDaai6 zung1 waa4
IPA[taj˨ tsʊŋ˥ wa˩]
Southern Min
Hokkien POJTāi Tiong-hôa
Vietnamese name
Vietnamese alphabetĐại Trung Hoa
Korean name
Hangul중화권
Hanja中華圈
Japanese name
Kanji中華圏
Transcriptions
Revised HepburnChūkaken

Greater China is an ethno-regional term describing a geographical area sharing cultural and economic ties with the Chinese people.[1][2][3][4] The notion contains a "great deal of ambiguity in its geographical coverage and politico-economic implications",[5] because some users use it to refer to "the commercial ties among ethnic Chinese, whereas others are more interested in cultural interactions, and still others in the prospects for political reunification"[6] but usually refers to an area encompassing the People’s Republic of China (mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau) and the Republic of China (known as Taiwan), places where the majority population is culturally Chinese.[7][8][9] Some analysts may also include places which have predominantly ethnic Chinese population such as Singapore. The term may sometimes be generalised to encompass "linkages among regional Chinese communities".[10][11]

The term's usage is contested; some observers in Taiwan characterise the term as harmful or a conflation of distinct polities and markets,[4] while the Chinese government has avoided it, either to allay fears of its economic expansionism or to avoid suggesting Taiwan (known as the Republic of China) and the People's Republic of China are on equal footing. Australian sinologist Wang Gungwu has characterised the concept as a "myth", and "wrong" if applied to overseas Chinese communities.[12]

Usage

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Multinational corporations frequently use the term when naming their headquarters in the region. For example, Procter & Gamble uses the term to name its regional headquarters in Guangzhou that also operates in Hong Kong and Taipei;[13] Apple Inc. uses it when referring to its regional headquarters in Shanghai.[14][15]

The term is often used to avoid invoking sensitivities over the political status of Taiwan.[16] Contrastingly, it has been used in reference to Chinese irredentism in nationalist contexts, such as the notion that China should reclaim its "lost territories" to create a Greater China.[17][18]

History

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A map from the 1944 American propaganda film The Battle of China, showing the territories of the Republic of China: China proper, Manchuria, Mongolia, Sinkiang, and Tibet.
Depiction of territories claimed by the Republic of China on a monument to Chiang Kai-shek in Wuqiu

The term has been used for a long time, but with differing scopes and connotations.

During the 1930s, George Cressey, an American academic who did work for the US State Department throughout his career, used the term to refer to the entirety of the territory controlled by the Qing dynasty, as opposed to China proper.[19] Usage by the United States on government maps in the 1940s as a political term included territories claimed by the Republic of China that were part of the previous Qing Empire, or geographically to refer to topographical features associated with China that may or may not have lain entirely within Chinese political borders.[19]

The concept began to appear again in Chinese-language sources in the late 1970s, referring to the growing commercial ties between the mainland and Hong Kong, with the possibility of extending these to Taiwan, with perhaps the first such reference being in a Taiwanese journal Changqiao in 1979.[19]

The English term subsequently re-emerged in the 1980s to refer to the growing economic ties between the regions as well as the possibility of political unification.[19] It is not an institutionalized entity such as the EU, ASEAN, or AU. The concept is a generalization to group several markets seen to be closely linked economically and does not imply sovereignty.[16] The concept does not always include Taiwan, for instance Cisco uses "Greater China and Taiwan" to refer to the market.[20]

See also

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References

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  1. ^ "Pact row could harm Greater China economic integration: ANZ". Focus Taiwan. 2 April 2014. Retrieved 6 November 2018.
  2. ^ MTV Channels In Southeast Asia and Greater China To Exclusively Air The Youth Inaugural BallArchived 22 May 2009 at the Wayback Machine – MTV Asia
  3. ^ 1 June 2008, Universal Music Group realigns presence in Greater China Archived 14 December 2017 at the Wayback Machine, Television Asia
  4. ^ a b Lee, James (6 August 2021). "'Greater China' is a harmful myth". Taipei Times. Retrieved 30 October 2023.
  5. ^ Huang, Jianli (2010). "Conceptualizing Chinese Migration and Chinese Overseas: The Contribution of Wang Gungwu". Journal of Chinese Overseas: 12.
  6. ^ Harding, Henry (1993). "The concept of "Greater China": Themes, variations and reservations". The China Quarterly. 136: 660–686. doi:10.1017/S030574100003229X. S2CID 154522700.
  7. ^ William, Yat Wai Lo (2016). "The concept of greater China in higher education: adoptions, dynamics and implications". Comparative Education. 52: 26–43. doi:10.1080/03050068.2015.1125613. This term can be narrowly defined as referring to a geographic concept that consists of the People's Republic of China, the Republic of China, the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region and the Macau Special Administrative Region, where ethnic Chinese comprise the majority of the population. In this sense, the term is used to describe the ethnic and the associated political, economic and cultural ties among these Chinese societies (Harding 1993; Cheung 2013).
  8. ^ "Apple overtakes Lenovo in China sales". Financial Times. 18 August 2011. Archived from the original on 27 November 2011. Retrieved 19 November 2011.
  9. ^ 4月29日日间新闻摘要（大中华区） [29 April: Daily news summary (Greater China)]. Reuters (in Chinese). 29 April 2019.
  10. ^ William, Yat Wai Lo (2016). "The concept of greater China in higher education: adoptions, dynamics and implications". Comparative Education. 52: 26–43. doi:10.1080/03050068.2015.1125613. However, some analysts see the Greater China concept as a way to summarise 'the linkages among the fair-flung international Chinese community', thereby incorporating Singapore and overseas Chinese communities in their usage of the term (Harding 1993, 660; also see Wang 1993).
  11. ^ Harding, Harry (December 1993). "The Concept of "Greater China": Themes, Variations and Reservations*". The China Quarterly. 136: 660–686. doi:10.1017/S030574100003229X. ISSN 1468-2648. S2CID 154522700.
  12. ^ He, Henry Yuhuai (2001). "Greater China" 大中华. Dictionary of the Political Thought of the People's Republic of China. M. E. Sharpe. pp. 47–48. ISBN 978-0-765-60569-6.
  13. ^ "P&G in Greater China". www.pgcareers.com. Retrieved 16 March 2020.
  14. ^ "Isabel Ge Mahe named Apple's managing director of Greater China". Apple Newsroom. Retrieved 16 March 2020.
  15. ^ Dowell, Andrew; Mickle, Tripp (14 March 2020). "Apple Closes All Its Stores Outside China Over Coronavirus". Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 16 March 2020.
  16. ^ a b Aretz, Tilman (2007). The greater China factbook. Taipei: Taiwan Elite Press. ISBN 978-986-7762-97-9. OCLC 264977502. Archived from the original on 31 January 2009.
  17. ^ Tseng, Hui-Yi (2017). Revolution, State Succession, International Treaties and the Diaoyu/Diaoyutai Islands. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. p. 66. ISBN 9781443893688.
  18. ^ Kim, Samuel S. (1979). China, the United Nations, and World Order. Princeton University Press. p. 43. ISBN 9780691100760.
  19. ^ a b c d Harding, Harry (December 1993). "The Concept of 'Greater China': Themes, Variations and Reservations". The China Quarterly. 136 (136, Special Issue: Greater China): 660–686. doi:10.1017/S030574100003229X. S2CID 154522700.
  20. ^ "The Rundown: Pegatron's Tesla Ambitions, Tech Sector Bonuses, and Cisco's New Software Center". topics.amcham.com.tw. Taiwan Topics. 18 January 2021. Retrieved 18 January 2021.
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