Sun, Yan.
From Empire to Nation State: Ethnic Politics in China.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,2020. 250 pp. Paperback,
ISBN 9781108794411
USD $41.99.  

Yan Sun 孙雁, a distinguished professor at the City University of New York 纽约市立大学 and a prolific scholar of Chinese politics, offers a compelling and thought-provoking analysis in her book From Empire to Nation-State: Ethnic Politics in China. Drawing on sources in both Chinese and English, fieldwork, and interviews with Chinese Party cadres, political scientists, and anthropologists, the book provides a deeply informed exploration of ethnic policy in China, culminating in the Lhasa and Urumqi riots of 2008–2009. One of the book’s central contributions is its use of what Sun terms a “long causal chain” to interpret ethnic tensions. She foregrounds two key dynamics: centralisation—rooted in China’s imperial legacies—and ethnicisation, shaped by modern political imperatives. The administrative ambiguity in the classification and enumeration of ethnic groups is well detailed, illustrating how the ethnic framework was both constructed and manipulated. Sun’s treatment of “loose rein” policies versus ethno-territorialism sheds light on the historical shifts in governing China’s outer peripheries, namely Tibet and Xinjiang.