Greater China | |||||||||||||||||||||||
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Chinese name | |||||||||||||||||||||||
Traditional Chinese | 大中華 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
Simplified Chinese | 大中华 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
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Vietnamese name | |||||||||||||||||||||||
Vietnamese alphabet | Đại Trung Hoa | ||||||||||||||||||||||
Korean name | |||||||||||||||||||||||
Hangul | 중화권 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
Hanja | 中華圈 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
Japanese name | |||||||||||||||||||||||
Kanji | 中華圏 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
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"Greater China" is an ethno-linguistic 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]
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).
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).