When asked "where are you from?" I would say: "Chinese". Yet my observation of answers from other areas of so called “Greater China” tells a different story.  Friends from Tainwan, Hong Kong, or Macau would reply in other words.  That brings me to the question of group identity: how it is formed and what will its impacts be.

In history, Chinese mainlanders inherited the group identity from the Republic Era. Later, the government pushed the education of group identity much further ahead.  The Chinese identity had built an ideological Great Wall which tied billions of people together and defended the new regime from falling apart.  Other areas of the "Greater China", although with same cultural and linguistic roots, lacked the mechanism which group identity form on the mainland.  Consequently, the cultivation of group identity is responsible for the different answers from the very beginning.

The rise of fall of world powers provided important lessons: The group identities soared when power rose and they wane when might plunged. The superpowers waved the chauvinistic baton, others launched jingoistic campaigns.  The bullied nations also found the group identity a magic weapon in rallying self-defense against the invaders. In the global competition of group identities towards political gains, whoever lagged behind suffered territorial loss and brain drain, etc.

Group identity is a sentiment, a collective trait, or form of culture which the group members share. Its development passed through four stages of kinship, religion, nation, and ideology. The strength and impact of influence of group identity grow from one stage to another.  The earliest tribal identity was tied to kinship and family lineage. Its appeal was limited and impacts were weak. Kingdoms and dynasties leveraged the power of religious and cultural identity. The war of crusaders, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom rebels were good example of mighty religious power in waging massive armed conflicts; Modern regimes utilized the national identity to mobilize millions of citizens. The contemporary group identity relie on ideological preaching, because ideological identity had strong appeal to modern hearts and minds, and it transcended religion, economy, race, and nation.  The Western ideologies successfully united the entire "free world" under the flag of democracy, liberty, and human rights. In comparison, the communist ideology collapsed when the Soviet Union only came up with nationalism. Thus, whoever stays on the ideological high ground reigns.

For politicians, the group identity is a two edged weapon. While it is efficient in organizing massive human power to achieve common goals, it could easily backfire with devastation.  It is a constant driving force of separatist movement, racial violence, and military conflicts. Of course, the reason why I mention this is also identity driven. Through the lens of narrow group identity, our views are no where from objectivism, nor would this article be an exception.