Recently, Professor Yang Jun, an expertofChinese Northeastern Nationality Study Center of Jilin University, published an article titled Jurchen’s Changes from Blood Relation to Political Identity: Relationship Between Political Identity and Ethnic Identity of Northern Ethnic Groups in Chinain Issue 4, 2023 of theJilin University Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences.
The article explores the dual nature of Jurchen tribal identity, encompassing both bloodline-based identity and geographical identity, which later became the foundation of the Meng'an Mouke system. As geographical identity evolved, regional groups emerged as entities that transcended pre-state social organizations, marking the starting point of the Jurchen's progression toward statehood and the establishment of political identity.The study further reveals how the external expansion of these regional groups intensified the role and transformation of ethnic identity. It was only after the Jin regime stabilized that the Jurchen ethnic community, as the ruling ethnic group of the Jin Dynasty, fully took shape.The article concludes that the ethnic identity of ancient northern peoples was, to a significant extent, dependent on political and regime identity. Following the collapse of their regimes, these ethnic communities often faced instability, making them susceptible to assimilation into other ethnic groups.
